ELYSIAN Autumn 2022 Travel & Technology Issue

ELYSIAN Women Inspiring Women

WINTER 2021/22

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Back Study Gray Oil on Canvas 40h x 30w in

By Catherine Woskow

764 MIAMI CIRCLE, SUITE 132 ATLANTA, GEORGIA 30324 (404) 352-8775

www.pryorfineart.com

Torso Frontal Mixed Media on Museum Board, 2020 39h x 20w in

By Catherine Woskow

1969 est.

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www.tirolergoldschmied.it South Tyrol - Italy

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the art of refinement diamond-studdet falconhoods

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106 Appel de la Sirène The Siren Call collection by Kim Kassas’ captures the beauty of the mermaid and seductive allure of sea.

BY SAMANTHA PAIGE

ELYSIAN VOLUME 8 • ISSUE 3 • THE TRAVEL & TECHNOLOGY ISSUE / AUTOMNE 2022 • L’ÉDITION VOYAGE ET TECHNOLOGIE

FEATURES

68 Lion

Hedy Lamarr

88 124

BY LAURIE BOGART WILES

The

City

The island country of SINGAPORE.

BY DAINA SAVAGE

Emilia Wing

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Mapping art. BY CORA WALDEN

Inspiring Women Barbara Melvin page 136 Jan Zakin page 150 INTERVIEWED BY KAREN FLOYD

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history&travel Written in the stars. BY CORDELIA LEAR

architecture&interiors Awe-inspiring & innovative architecture. BY CHRISTY NIELSON

DEPARTMENTS

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health&beauty

66shopping

The future of beauty. BY PEARL LUSTRE

The scent of luxury. BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

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art&culture

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NFTs and the transformation of art. BY MARCY DUBROFF

philanthropy

184back story

Girls Who Code: The numbers game. BY SONIA HENRY

ELYSIAN celebrates the launch of its 2022 Summer “GREEN” issue at Mountain Sky Ranch in Emigrant, Montana.

on the cover

Cover model Jan Zakin photographed by Michael Paniccia.

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food& & dining Dinner with a view. BY WINIFRED TOWNSEND

E publisher

c r e at o r - i n - c h i e f

Ryan Stalvey

executive editor

Laurie Bogart Wiles media

&

production director

Rob Springer

managing editor

&

d i g i ta l d i r e c t o r

Celia Wise Cooksey comptroller

Anna Christian director of digital production

&

implementation

Kevin Pham

d i g i ta l p r o j e c t s d i r e c t o r

Joey Iannetta

director of philanthropy

Kimberli Scott

d e s i g n a s s o c i at e

Amber Edwards

director of web design

&

development

Elliot Derhay

editorial director

Rita Allison

lead photographer

Michael Paniccia

post-production editor

Elise Rimmer

post-production graphics

Ty Yachaina

d i g i ta l a d d i r e c t o r

Christiana Purves

s o c i a l m e d i a c o o r d i n at o r

Stephanie Duclos

h e a d o f b l o c k c h a i n s t r at e g y

Jeff Jewett

a d m i n i s t r at i v e s u p p o r t

Charlotte Jones

e v e n t c o o r d i n at o r s

Cathy Ellett, Bea Smith contributing writers

Marcy Dubroff, Sindie Fitzgerald-Rankin, Verity Galsworthy, Sonia Henry, Pearl Lustre, Christy Nielson, Samantha Paige, Daina Savage, Hannah Shepard Simpson, Cora Walden copy editors

Nancy Brady, Monya Havekost, Diane High, Hadley Inabinet c o n s u lt i n g e d i t o r

Jason Spencer

c o o r d i n at i n g p r o d u c e r

Paula Fender

c i r c u l at i o n s p e c i a l i s t

Greg Wolfe

contributing photographer

Dalton Rook Barber

ELYSIAN Magazine is published four times per year by Palladian Publications LLC, 113 W. Main St., Spartanburg, SC 29306.

For subscription information, call 888-329-9534; visit subscriptions@elysianservice.com; mailing address: Subscription Service, Elysian Magazine PO Box 2172, Williamsport, PA 17703 All rights reserved. Printed in the USA.

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At ELYSIAN, technology plays a crucial role in the jobs we do; from research and editing, to video production and designing, we cherish our media, devices, gadgets and applications. From top to bottom: Managing Editor & Digital Director Celia Cooksey, Executive Editor Laurie Boggart Wiles, Media & Production Director Rob Springer, Director of Digital Production & Implementation Kevin Pham, and Post-Production Editor Elise Rimmer with Post-Production Graphic Designer Ty Yachaina.

Karen Floyd

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WE ADD SOUL TO EVERYTHING WE TOUCH; WE MAKE THINGS MORE PERSONAL, AND WE VALUE CREATING CONNECTIONS.” —JODIE KING, FORBES MAGAZINE

hrough travel and technology, the ELYSIAN woman expands her range of experiences and therefore broadens perspective. By including women into new conversations, (whether the intersection of exploration and travel with our piece on Singapore . . . or involving women in technology with NFT and web3) ELYSIAN explores new horizons. Always with the intention of growing knowledge and understanding our mission is to create, connect and change.

TRAVEL

TECHNOLOGY

With much anticipation, in Napa Valley on August 6, 2022, Elysian launches our first NFT featuring our magazine cover and Inspiring Woman Jan Zakin. If you have not heard of an NFT or are unsure what a NonFungible Token is, you are not alone. Women have accounted for only 4% of total NFT sales globally since 2020 and according to a report published by ArtTactic, purchased only 16% in the NFT art market. ELYSIAN engages in this untapped space with a goal to provide education and access to what many readers view as an exciting, cutting-edge space.

Our NFTs will be experiential in nature, offering access to certain products and/or events. Used to purchase our quarterly NFTs, we are also launching our own cryptocurrency called the Elysian Token. This is an important step for us as proceeds will be allocated on a continuous basis to (women-, children-, and animal-focused) foundations. Philanthropy is core to ELYSIAN’s mission and to make this viable, we have enhanced our (ecosystem/mobile app) to include a digital wallet. Today you can download the ELYSIAN Connect app from the Apple App Store, where you will find step-by-step instructions to engage, locate, and store Elysian Tokens, as well as purchase our NFTs.

OUR WOMEN

As with every issue, we focus on two Inspiring Women whose lives reverberate in the travel and technology space. Our cover and first minted NFT is Jan Zakin. Both a physician and co-owner/proprietor of the Zakin Family Estate, her story of perseverance, self-discovery and philanthropy inspires us to do and be more. In a predominantly male-dominate profession, Barbara Melvin, our second Inspiring Woman, is one of the world’s few women to serve as CEO for a major port. Barbara’s path was both risky and steady, serving over two decades in multiple roles in the sixth largest container shipping port in the United States. When asked what she hoped was her legacy, she responded, “That I gave it everything I had. I left nothing on the table.”

And finally, it is only appropriate that we honor ICON feature and actress Hedy Lamarr for her contribution to technology. Called “the most beautiful woman in the world” she had a combination of beauty and brains. The only child of Jewish parents, born in Vienna in the first year of WWII, she was later discovered by Hollywood studio magnate Louis B. Mayer and became an overnight success in her first Hollywood film. With no recognition as an inventor, until recently, she conceived, developed and masterminded “frequency hopping,” a multiple band communication system serving as the foundation technology for GPS, secure Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and top-secret military satellite systems.

OUR “TAKE AWAY”

Traditionally more risk aware than their counterparts, dynamic women become empowered with education and knowledge. Equipped with adequate facts and accurate information, decision making is easier, no matter what the subject.

We believe that travel, technology and stories of Inspiring Women fuel the curious mind . . . and that every woman has her own story, value and ability to make a difference.

Thank you for taking the journey, With much love,

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Karen Floyd Publisher

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ALLIE HINE

Travel has always been central to an ELYSIAN woman’s life. With an appetite for the unknown, our readers crave adventure, hunger exploring new places and encountering different cultures. As Helen Keller said, “Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing at all.” We dare to travel to foreign parts to discover diverse people and their customs, mores, indigenous art, and commensurate architecture.

The ELYSIAN woman is enthralled with wonder in nature’s mountains, oceans, and deserts. These things and more fuel our curiosity, tickle our intellect, repurpose our energy and center our focus. In this issue, we take you to the stars in a breathtaking photo-essay on astronomy. From Azerbaijan to the Italian Alps, Dubai to Delhi, you will be taken away by “Awe-Inspiring and Innovative Architecture.” Feast (visually, at least) on innovative cuisine served in the many restaurants at The Shard, London’s tallest building, which pierces the city’s skyline. Explore Singapore, the melting pot of many cultures, and the dynamic hub of the Far East.

BOUTIQUE IN KING OF PRUSSIA MALL

PHOTOGRAPHED BY JULIAN LE BALLISTER

PAULAHIAN.COM

PAULA HIAN URSULA JACKET & JOLIE SKIRT PICTURED

PAULA HIAN

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travel&history

written in the

stars

BY CORDELIA LEAR

An ancient Bristlecone pine tree in California against a background of swirling stars is captured using a long-exposure, star trail camera technique.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY MIKE VER SPRILL / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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The Fortune Teller, produced by Westwood, Fiel, Colemann in 1904, describes the temperament and fortunes of each zodiac sign and the birthstones for every month.

stronomy. The study of the universe. A perpetual phenomenon. A spectacle of stars.

An endless enigma. Since the first dawn, mankind has looked up to the night sky and marveled at the cosmic creation conceived by an Almighty hand. Astronomers, astrologers, mystics, cosmologists, astrophysicists, opacarophiles, sailors and navigators down through the ages have looked to the heavens for guidance and understanding.

While early civilizations had a galactic vocabulary, many of the names we use to identify the constellations today were contrived by the Roman Empire. For example, the constellation Scorpius comes from the Latin word for scorpion, and yet Ancient Egyptians, seeing the same stellar form of that predatory arachnid, called the constellation Ip, after the scorpion king. Then there’s Orion, the hunter-hero figure of Ancient Babylon: that constellation takes its name from the Greek.

Indeed, celestial charts have been mapped since the Phoenicians, the first Western civilization to observe the Sun and stars to determine direction. But it was not until 1930, when the International Astronomical Union was formed, that scientific order was established by redrawing maps and defining boundaries among 88 constellations. Of all the constellations, only 12 represent the signs of the zodiac. This is no random thing: the Sun, Moon, and planets appear to wander along a narrow path that runs directly between these groupings and hence, these zodiacal constellations are referred to as “wandering stars.”

Modern astrology begins with Nicolaus Copernicus. Born in 1473 in the region then known as Prussia, he was a Renaissance polymath, polyglot, lawyer, physician, classics scholar, translator, governor, economist, mathematician, astronomer—yes, all that and perhaps out of necessity, a politician—he formulated a model of the universe that first placed the sun, not the earth, in its center. However, it was Italian astronomer, physicist, and engineer Galileo Galilei of Pisa (1564-1642) who is called the “father of modern astronomy.” At the cost of heresy decried by Pope Urban VIII and the Jesuit Order, Galileo supported Copernicus’s theory of heliocentrism, which correctly maintains that the Earth rotates daily as it revolves around the sun—hence dawn, dusk, day, night, and the passing of the months and seasons.

He disproved the immutability of the heavens, invented the first 30X magnification

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The Boreal and Austral hemispheres are identified with the zodiac signs of the constellations by Dutch cartographer and artist Frederick De Wit (1629-1706), in 1680.

MARZOLINO / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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terrestrial telescope, or spyglass, that made visible the night sky for observation, then manufactured and sold them to seamen as a highly profitable sideline to his experiments and studies.

Through his spyglass in 1609 he was the first to see the moon’s lunar mountains and craters and devised topographical charts that accurately estimated their height and size. The following year, he discovered three of Jupiter’s four largest moons, naming them the Medicean stars in honor of his patron, the infamous Cosimo II de’ Medici and his three brothers; but Galileo’s discovery of these satellites and pronouncement that their orbits were contrary to Aristotle’s cosmology that all heavenly bodies circle the Earth, caused a revolution among the astronomers of the day. His observations of the Phases of Venus, Saturn’s rings, and Neptune, and his studies of sunspots located many stars too distant to be visible to the naked eye including the double star Mizar in Ursa Major, and resulted in his pronouncement that the Milky Way, long believed to be a vast formation of nebulous clouds, was a multitude of densely packed stars.

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hat there were women astronomers can be of no doubt, however as too often happens, their names and discoveries were undocumented. Until, that is, such female luminaries as Sophie Brahe (1556-1643), a trained horticulturist and chemist who was dissuaded from making astronomical observations as women were deemed unable to achieve the level of understanding necessary to work in the field—but she did. Her work led to the discovery of the supernova (SN 1572), and with her animus invictus (“determined mind”) she refuted the geocentric model of the universe previously held and conducted measurements alongside her brother, astronomer Tycho Brahe, through telescopes and other astronomical devices, of the planets’ orbits. Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), who catalogued stellar spectra; and in our own day, the much-maligned C. Marcella Carollo, whose findings of 25 years on galaxy formation and evolution, and extragalactic astronomy, were all but dismissed a mere three years ago when her reputation was heedlessly corrupted when caught up in an insupportable politico-academic controversy.

Navigating the night sky with the North Star as their guide

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Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza under a star-studded night sky. Royal tombs for three different pharaohs, researchers believe the Pyramid of Menkaure, the Pyramid of Kafre, and the Great Pyramid of Giza, along with the Great Sphinx, were engineered in celestial alignment to chart the heavens and earth.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STOCKBYM / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

have led peoples from every corner of the earth to course and explore lands and seas, near and far, to find their way.

Knowledge of the heavens was the GPS of ancient days, and it is a pity that modern technology has made ancient technology obsolete because if Wi-Fi was down, if telescopes failed, if we were meant to look up at the stars to find our way, how many of us would see the constellations for the stellar map that guided mankind far, far beyond the span of our present time?

Now, do not confuse the technology of astronomy with the pseudoscience of astrology. Apart from the 12 zodiac signs identified among the 88 constellations, there is nothing in common—and indeed, nothing scientific or factual about astrology. But down through the ages, people have believed in it. They are determined that their fate lies in the stars, their future is predetermined, and their movements, thoughts, emotions, indeed their every step along the road of life is taken in sync with the movements and positions of celestial objects. To support or defy this would mean going back to the second millennium BC, when astrology is known to have

been established as the interpretation of divine communication through the shifting celestial cycles. What makes astrology a human phenomenon is the fact that it was developed all over, and in isolated parts of, the world—by the Hindus, the Chinese and the Ancient Mayans of South America, in Mesopotamia, where its roots took hold in the 19th century BC, spreading to Ancient Greece and Rome, throughout the Arab world and lastly, throughout Europe.

Astrology is more closely aligned with alchemy and widely referred to as occultism, as pronounced in the works of Dante, Geoffrey Chaucer, and the great bard himself, William Shakespeare, in King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, and Richard II—indeed, in nearly every play he wrote. Will’s contemporary, Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe, makes reference to astrology in Doctor Faustus. Geoffrey Chaucer refers to it in The Canterbury Tales. It bears no scientific validity, no power, no real benefit except that somehow, some way, some people believe that astrologists not only can guide their lives effectively, but prepare them for things that may happen, before they happen—and, indeed, if they happen. Astrology is

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Starry, starry night . . . the Greek village of Oia on the island of Santorini, known as Thira, is the largest island of a small archipelago, 120 miles southeast from the mainland in the Aegean Sea. PHOTOGRAPHY BY ICEMANPHOTOS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

an answer derived from no question. Incredibly, at a time when people are desperately looking for answers, more and more people have looked to astrology for guidance and insurance. Indeed, even as early as Cicero, skeptics objected to astrology and over time, more and more people doubted it altogether—until 1960, when a renewed interest fueled by magazine and newspaper, astrologists began running daily columns that curious and many weak-minded people began to believe in—even to the extent of supplanting their God. According to sociologist Theodor W. Adorno in 1953, “astrology is a large-scale manifestation of systematic irrationalism, where individuals are subtly led—through flattery and vague generalizations—to believe that the author of the column is addressing them directly,” going so far to say that “occultism is the metaphysic of the dopes.” One true believer who kept his own private team of astrologers close by at all times was Adolf Hitler.

Far better to embrace Galileo and learn that it was he, more than six centuries ago, whose findings first mapped the mountains and craters that led the way for Apollo 11. Appreciate the man’s

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sacrifice, and how he was ultimately forced to forsake his studies when the Catholic Church, threatened by his findings, imprisoned him in Rome for the final years of his life during the Catholic Inquisition, and how for centuries, his 16 books were banned by the Vatican. When Galileo died, completely blind, at the age of 78, his last words were, “And yet it still moves,” reveling in the solar system he no longer could see. So formidable was his contribution to mankind that in his honor, NASA’s Jupiter exploration craft and European satellite navigation systems are called Galileo. ■

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herefore, open your own horizon to the night sky by visiting an observatory. Among the most popular are:

GORNERGRAT OBSERVATORY, SWITZERLAND, high in the Alps at an altitude of almost two-miles above sea level, Gornergrat Observatory’s breathtaking views of the Matterhorn

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and popular Dining With the Stars and Moonlight Fascination packages are, quite literally, a highpoint for holiday skiers. Only accessible by foot or special train from Zermatt, TV viewers may recognize this as a location for the BBC series, The Night Manager. gornergrat-kulm.ch SIDING SPRING OBSERVATORY outside the town of Coonabarabran and about a five-hour drive northwest of Sydney, Australia’s famous Anglo Australian Telescope, with its 3.9-metre mirror, is the largest in the country. The Visitors Viewing Gallery and Exploratory offer hands-on activities and reality presentations. sidingspringobservatory.com.au ST-MICHEL-l’OBSERVATOIRE is located northwest of SaintTropez. Built in 1937, the observatory hosts its popular program, The Summer of Astronomy, which runs from July to mid-September.

Local accommodations and Kir Provencal, a local cocktail made with an almond and vanilla liqueur, make this a sought-out destination for amateur astronomers. saintmichellobservatoire.com

MAUNA KEA OBSERVATORY, located atop Hawaii’s highest point, at 4205-meters above sea-level on the crown of the dormant volcano Mauna Kea, is the joint project of 11 countries. To get to the observatory, you will need a four-wheel vehicle and you can only go during the daytime, not past sunset.

If you go, be sure you have not gone scuba diving beforehand, or go after. ifa.hawaii.edu or maunakeaobservatories.org ROYAL OBSERVATORY, EDINBURGH is in the Blackford Hill section of the city. Take part in a Public Astronomy Evening (held Fridays from October through April and monthly in the summer) for a tour of the Victorian telescope dome and lecture. roe.ac.uk/vc LOWELL OBSERVATORY, built in 1894 in Flagstaff, Arizona, is where a number of major astronomical breakthroughs were made, such as the discovery of Pluto and the rings of Saturn. Multiple programs are offered. lowell.edu

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For the ultimate and authentic stargazing experience, go among the stars in a nighttime hot air balloon excursion, where the Milky Way seems to be within arms-reach.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY THONGSUK7824 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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architecture&interiors

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The Süleymaniye Mosque, located on the Third Hill of Istanbul in Turkey, was designed in 1550 by the greatest architect of the Ottoman Empire, Mimar Sinan, and completed in 1557.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY PASCAL / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Awe-Inspiring & Innovative Architecture

BY CHRISTY NIELSON

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Born in Baghdad, Dame Zaha Mohammad Hadid, DBE, RA (1950-2016) was a British-Iraqi architect, artist and designer who is celebrated as a major figure of the 20th and 21st centuries. Called “Queen of the curve,” she “liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity.”

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY VASTRAM / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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or millennia, humans have been dreaming up and constructing astonishing architectural structures. The Great Wall of China, the Colosseum in Italy and the Süleymaniye Mosque in Turkey are just a few examples of ancient wonders of design. Modern-day architecture is an evolution of the invention and innovation that brought these structures and others into being, honed throughout the ages to serve the people of the day.

Good architecture creates functional, safe spaces for us to live, work, learn and gather. Great architecture does all of this—and more. It captivates us. It draws us in. It stimulates us. It makes us wonder, “How in the world did they do that?”

“Architecture is driven by innovation, but also by the reality of the market—including clients, sites, building codes, and zoning. Design and construction happen in the real world with real constraints,” explains William Richards, architectural historian, researcher and author of several books including Bamboo Contemporary: Green Houses Around the Globe and Together By Design: The Art and Architecture of Communal Living. “For that reason, it’s really quite remarkable for a truly innovative building to be completed given all of the different demands that are on the architect and all the different factors that play into getting something designed and built.”

Here we highlight some of those remarkable projects, explore concepts of the future and examine the factors influencing architectural innovation.

One of the most influential evolutions of architecture, according to Richards, is the shift toward designing with nature and not in spite of it. “This unleashed a whole new set of innovations in terms of answering the question how can we do something that has a minimal impact on the environment but has maximum impact on our quality of life,” Richards explains.

Take, for example, Costa Rica Congress Hall, designed for the Costa Rican government by Brooklyn-based design firm and think tank CAZA. The 300,000-square-foot structure, consisting of a series of hypercubes clad in steel louvers, revisits the country’s legacy of tropical modernism and invites Costa Ricans to “imagine how architecture can embody social struggle and a new vision for an ecological future,” according to the firm. The

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Futuristic Messner Mountain Museum Corones, designed by Zaha Hadid Architects in 2015, is at one with the South Tyrol, in the province of Bolzano, high up in the Italian Alps.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ALEXANDER JUNG / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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No. 30 St. Mary Axe in London’s financial district is the first commercial environmental skyscraper designed to maximize natural light and ventilation as a means of reducing energy consumption.

Completed in 2004, it boasts 41 floors and an elevation of 591-feet.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS JG WHITE / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: Taipei 101 was designed by C.Y. Lee & Partners. Inspired by a bamboo stalk, which signifies progress and prosperity, it was the world’s tallest building from the time it opened in 2004 until Burj Khalifa was built in Dubai—the first skyscraper in the world to exceed a half-kilometer in height.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY IBRAR.KUNRI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

design also pays homage to the country’s ecology and features a series of hanging landscapes and sky terraces exhibiting native plants that “invite the landscape into the structure itself.”

“We are invested and obsessed with the idea of localizing technology,” says Carlos Arnaiz, Principal of CAZA. “In all of our projects, the built form is shaped by addressing nature and incorporating the surrounding context. It doesn’t need to be high-tech; it can be as simple as passive ventilation.”

in

Singapore, the Parkroyal Collection Pickering is an example of how architect firm WOHA is using sustainable design to address pressing issues like climate change, population growth and rapidly increasing urbanization. The building faces Hong Lim Park and is draped with greenery that pulls from the park and extends into the guest rooms with private tropical gardens. The project earned Singapore’s Green Mark Platinum rating (the nation’s highest environmental certification) thanks to naturally ventilated corridors, solarpowered irrigation, rain water retention and sun shading.

The Messner Mountain Museum Corones in Italy, designed by Zaha Hadid (1950-2016), is a striking example of designing in harmony with the environment. The distinctive museum, which pays homage to mountaineer Reinhold Messner, is tucked into the summit of Kronplatz, a 7,400-foot peak. While most of the museum is subterranean, portions jut out of the mountain—almost like points on a compass—to offer spectacular views of the Dolomite and Alps mountain ranges.

Another mountaintop structure, the XYZ House by New York firm Axis Mundi, is a bold cross-shaped steel home in the Swiss Alps that appears to be propped up by the mountain. It is a dwelling “meaningfully stripped of all nostalgia

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Located in the Financial District of Dubai, the unique architectural design of the Museum of the Future is inspired by three elements: green hill, building, and void. Opened in February of this year, the goal of the museum is to promote technological innovation in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence. Architect: Killa Design, Dubai.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY IBRAR.KUNRI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Aptly called the Lotus Temple, the nine-sided circular building is inspired by specific Baháʼí scripture, which is true of all Baháʼí houses of worship. Completed in 1986, 8,000 Baháʼís from 107 countries attended its official dedication in December of that year.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY STOCKBYM / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM • Opposite: The staggering, 138,000 square-foot headquarters of Antwerp’s Port Authority is another masterwork created by the late architect Zaha Hadi. Located in Flanders, Belgium, it is Europe’s second-largest seaport after Rotterdam. PHOTOGRAPHY BY RUDY MAREEL / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

from the material world,” according to the firm. The three parts of the structure—reminiscent of the Cartesian x, y and z coordinates—house the entry tunnel/bridge, a tower for the staircase and elevator, and the living space itself, which seems to defy gravity as it balances over the valley below.

A structure that reaches mountainous heights on its own, the skyscraper has been in essence a status symbol of prosperity and pride for communities around the world. This is particularly true today in architectural hubs like Dubai, home to the world’s tallest tower, Burj Khalifa, and Shanghai where the 128-story Shanghai Tower is the tallest building in China.

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nvironmental considerations and an evolving understanding of how people work and gather are pushing architects to even newer heights.“Every architect is trained to understand that there is design as it’s taught and learned but then innovative design is the skill you develop to combine old and new to address current demands,” says Richards.

For instance, the stunning 30 St Mary Axe in London (Foster + Partners) is the city’s first ecological tall building.

The oval-shaped structure challenges perceptions of what a tower should look like and responds to the site constraints in London’s dense financial district. The shape also helps the building capitalize on natural light and ventilation, significantly reducing its energy consumption.

The use of renewable materials—everything from bamboo to structural mycelium made from fungi—is an important way architects are designing to address the impacts of climate change. One of the renewable materials that has gained a lot of traction is mass timber—wood products that have been glued, nailed or doweled together to create an engineered wood that is sustainable, strong and cost-effective.

Building codes are allowing ever taller timber structures to be constructed. In fact, the 70-story W350 Project in Tokyo is a proposed wooden skyscraper that when completed will be the tallest wooden skyscraper in the world and Japan’s highest tower overall.

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A conceptual design for Costa Rica’s new Congress Hall by the international firm of CAZA/ Carlos Arnaiz Caza Architects, the concept embraces a new social vision for an ecological future through verdant hanging landscapes and sky terraces covered in native trees and gardens.

IMAGE COURTESY CAZARCH.COM

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Another innovation trend to keep an eye on, Richards says, is climate positive architecture. “There’s a lot of talk today about net zero and reducing the embodied carbon in a building to zero,” he explains. “Climate positive architecture does all of this but also captures carbon from the atmosphere.”

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill (SOM) recently debuted a concept for a skyscraper called Urban Sequoia, which absorbs more carbon dioxide than it releases—what’s known as operational carbon. SOM thinks it can achieve this innovation by covering the building in algae to create biofuel as well as insulating the building with hemp—among other solutions. But, you don’t have to wait for the concept to be reality. Arkin Tilt Architects designed a 34,000 squarefoot mixed-use building in Eugene, Ore., to be insulated with locally-sourced straw bales finished with clay plaster— meaning the walls themselves store upward of 12 tons of carbon dioxide.

Another issue that architects are addressing with design and technology is how to accommodate new and different communities, based not only on people’s preferences but also forces like the pandemic that have shifted how and where people live and work. Smart cities pose one promising advance, using digital technology to adapt to the changing needs of communities by utilizing data to improve overall quality of life through streamlined government services, better transportation and a focus on energy efficiency and sustainability.

The iconic architecture in Singapore, one of the best examples of a smart city, is an important aspect of its smart city designation. For example, the remarkable Supertrees in the city’s verdant Gardens by the Bay have environmentally sustainable functions built in such as solar energy harvesting. Also, the Gardens’ 200-plus mangrove trees at the Kingfisher Wetlands serve as a carbon sink to remove greenhouse gases from the environment and improve air quality for residents.

“Designing with nature isn’t a new idea, but it’s one that architects in every city and country are trying to reestablish,” says Richards. “Innovation can be accidental, but more often than not, it’s because of an architect’s commitment to challenging the status quo, which is the basis of good design and great architecture.” ■

The London architectural firm of Desitecture/Ravensbourne presents a modernistic, conceptual design for a self-sustaining, 210-story, vertical community of highrise buildings planned for WuXi, China. Inspired by the banyan tree, which has rich spiritual, mythological and royal meaning in many cultures around the world.

IMAGE COURTESY DESITECTURE.CO.UK

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health&beauty

BY PEARL LUSTRE

the future of beauty

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GEORGE MAYER / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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VALENTINA PHOTOS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

the old Virginia Slims cigarette commercial used to say, “You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby.” Beauty Tech is here to stay—and how you choose, buy, and use cosmetics and skincare products will never be the same again.

To look ahead, we have to look back. In 1919, French chemist named Eugène Paul Louis Schueller formulated a safe hair dye he called Oréale, which he marketed to Parisian hairdressers. The response was terrific and within a year, he hired three chemists to formulate new beauty products.

Today, L’Oréal of Paris is a $30 billion beauty and personal care conglomerate that ranks among the three largest in the world. With 39,775 patents globally, L’Oréal employs 85,252 chemists and innovators who are responsible for 36 brands, including Garnier, Maybelline, The Body Shop, and YSL Beauté.

Importantly, L’Oréal is the industry leader in sustainability and beauty technology. Barbara Lavernos, Deputy CEO of Research, Innovation, and Technology at L’Oréal spearheaded “L’Oréal for the Future,” a program designed to decrease CO2 emissions produced in its manufacturing and packaging processes, with an end-goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2030. But it goes beyond that. In a recent podcast, she addressed the “vital importance” of achieving harmony with nature to balance a woman’s life.

“Everyone can be an agent for change, and make an individual impact that helps the collective,” she advocates.

Barbara is an open-minded woman known for her dynamic, eclectic nature and deep beliefs. She came to L’Oréal as an intern in 1991 after graduating from university with an engineering degree, and today is responsible for the entire supply chain—from sourcing of ingredients to packaging— contributing her extensive experience as L’Oréal embraces biodiversity and nature, and works toward their unique model of sustainable growth in all 39 of their different facilities and factories as a cornerstone of good business practices. “I am living in a big city,” the innovator explains, “but my personal equilibrium is coming from the vital needs of also spending time in nature.

How can we live together in harmony with the earth? When the harmony is no longer there, this is disaster. There is a sense of urgency everyone has on earth right now. We now have the consciousness and understanding of the next frontier of the planet. What is important is to be in tune with your own direct ecosystem. At the end of the day, what we are building is to always be in harmony. We have already demonstrated how inventive and committed we are at L’Oréal. With this new technology the company is definitely embedded in sustainable development and growth—one is nourished by the other.

In Las Vegas in 2020, at CES (Consumer Technology Association), the

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Tomorrow is a new beginning.

Embrace the light of a new day, for you have a fresh chance to begin again, to make life beautiful.”

— LEON BROWN, AUTHOR

most influential tech event in the world, L’Oréal unveiled Perso, a 3-in1 smart skincare device that uses artificial intelligence to gather data to formulate personalized moisturizers, customized foundations, and lipstick colors—and gets smarter over time. It looks like a water cup and is divided into two versions, skincare and lipstick. Here’s how it works: you take a selfie, download it into the app and AI assesses your skin, environmental factors like air pollution, UV rays, pollen, temperature, air quality, temperature, and humidity, then considers your top skin care concerns, such as deep wrinkles, fine lines, dark spots, lack of firmness, pore visibility, and lack of radiance.

It then engages a patented three-cartridge system using advanced robotics to dispense the perfect formula for you for moisturizer, foundation, and a signature lip color that you can coordinate with your dress color. L’Oréal launched Perso in its YSL Rouge Sur Mesure, allowing you to create your “bespoke” color of YSL Iconic Velvet Cream Matte Finish Lipstick. After the shade is selected, it is dispensed in a perfectly portioned single application and features a mirrored compact for on-the-go touch-ups. “The beauty industry is rapidly evolving,” explains Guive Balooch, Global Vice President of L’Oreal’s Technology Incubator, “and we constantly have to be thinking ahead. With Rouge Sur Mesure specifically, a huge challenge was inclusivity and ensuring the device could produce enough shades to meet the myriad skin tones and cultural preferences of consumers. Another challenge was making the experience the most consumer-centric as possible for lipstick lovers that are not necessarily used to using technology. The third challenge was technological: accommodating all types of phones, creating smart packaging that was safe and hygienic, as well as creating a connected system, which dispensed formula up versus down. We successfully worked through these challenges and created a product and system that was truly inclusive with excellent performance.”

In 2018, L’Oréal purchased ModiFace, a Toronto-based company that specializes in augmented reality beauty apps for clients such as its rivals Shiseido and Estée Lauder, which vie with L’Oréal as the largest cosmetics manufacturer in the world. ModiFace’s AI-powered skin diagnostic and facial analysis technology is the foundation of the Perso app. “Our ultimate goal is to create products that consumers do not see as technology, but as something core to their daily lives,” Balooch points out. L’Oréal, however, understands the future goes beyond the established horizon in beauty and skincare. To that end, the company is helping empower the next generation of entrepreneurs at Station F, the world’s largest startup campus, a community of 1,000 start-ups and established cosmetics brands

housed in a monumental 366,000 square-foot converted railway depot in the heart of Paris. By partnering with them, shopping and virtual tryon technology integrated with their online and physical shops means, theoretically, a shopper can try on over 2000 makeup products.

The

Japanese multinational cosmetics company, Shiseido, was founded in 1872 and is one of the oldest—and fifth largest—cosmetics companies in the world. A half-year before Perso was introduced at CES 2020, Shiseido introduced Optune, a smart skincare device that uses artificial intelligence to create a custom moisturizer for customers. AI analyzes photos of the individual’s face to detect skin conditions, then cross-references it with location-based weather and air pollution data before dispensing the perfectly matched lotion. Powered by technology from two tech companies, MATCHCo and Boston-based Giaran, which Shiseido acquired in 2017, Optune is sold on a subscription basis for around $92 a month.

The race to the top of this new technology began more than 20 years ago—long before COVID. “There is still no [cosmetics] company that has been able to integrate personalization into their business models,” said Shiseido president Masahiko Uotani in an interview with the Nikkei Asian Review. “If we lead in this field, we could beat global competitors that are larger than us.” For this reason, laboratories are cloaked in the kind of secrecy you’d see in a James Bond movie. Shiseido Venture Partners, a limited partner in The Dreamers’ Fund, which was founded by Japanese soccer star Keisuke Honda and American actor Will Smith, is focused on the impact technology will have on the consumer. “We’re very picky about which startups we want to invest in,” Marc Rey, Shiseido’s chief growth officer, explained in a recent interview in Forbes. “The thing we’re most interested in is USP [unique selling proposition] and vision; they’re at least as important as the technology. It’s about what the technology can bring as a real change to the consumer.”

Beauty technology is moving at such a fast clip that soon digital-first makeup departments, AR beauty apps, and smart skincare devices will be the norm rather than the exception of how women the world over will shop for, and buy, their beauty products. But it’s not just about technology.

The introduction of augmented reality beauty apps is one of the most significant sales tools to come to the market in a long time.

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As Michael Smith, CIO of Estée Lauder, explained in a recent interview, “It’s important to understand there are times when transformation requires external support. The ideas that are created during (exploratory programming and software development) are used to further our strategic vision within IT and bring in fresh, new ideas for our team.” How will beauty tech impact the $15 billion American multinational, New York City-based manufacturer and marketer of makeup, skincare, fragrance, and hair products? Founded in 1946 by husbandand-wife team Estée and Joseph Lauder, the foundation of the company’s sales was frontand-center in high-end department stores such as Lord & Taylor, Bloomingdale’s, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman, and Macy’s, with separate cosmetics counters for their individual brands, which include Clinique, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, Tommy Hilfiger and Dona Karan. That all-important “personal touch” a customer receives when she consults with a professional makeup consultant is lost in the beauty tech world. To continue to connect, Estée Lauder reaches out with virtual consultations, a complimentary video lesson you can schedule with an Estée Lauder expert, individually for yourself or with an invited group of friends. Go online to www.esteelauder.com/virtual-beauty-consultations and select a lesson and you’ll be paired with an Estée Artist. After a chick chat, she will help you select foundation formulas and shades that flatter your skin, test new eye makeup, lip shades with their Lip Virtual Try-On Tool, and answer your questions.

Surprisingly, one company that does not use AR is Olay, the $3 billion skincare company owned by the American consumer goods giant, Proctor & Gamble. One of the most successful and recognized names in moisturizers, what began as Oil of Olay in 1952 grew into a complete line of hypoallergenic variants, cleansers, and creams. Olay Skin Advisor only works as a web app. It scans your face using your device’s camera, then identifies your skin’s flaws, such as wrinkles, crow’s feet, enlarged pores, before recommending a skin care regimen best suited to the improvement and maintenance of your skin.

Sephora, the French multinational retailer, markets 340 wellness and beauty brands in more than 2,600 stores worldwide, including Rare Beauty by Selena Gomez, Tom Ford, Urban Decay, Anastasia Beverly Hills, and Lancôme In 2016, the company launched its own augmented reality platform called Pocket Contour. By uploading a photo with the app, the user can learn how to contour her skin step-by-step to best set off her shape face, then experiment with different cosmetic shade combinations.

MAC Cosmetics, which has an annual turnover of $1 billion in sales and 500 independent stores (including Nordstrom’s Bloomingdale’s, and Macy’s) was acquired by Estée Lauder in 1996. MAC has integrated this technology in their makeup mirrors using YouCam Makeup—one of, if not the most popular AR beauty apps in the world. Its 3D face scanning app and selfie editor allows customers to create a whole virtual makeover using different brands and hundreds of filters for lips, eyes, brows, and cheeks, and options to try out new hairstyles and colors before you buy anything. The app also cam measures the health of your skin. In a few steps, you are assigned a score that reflects the number of wrinkles, blemishes, and estimates your dermatological age to determine the best treatment for you now, and in the future. The AR beauty app is free. YouCam’s parent company, Perfect, announced that they will start to offer 1-on-1 beauty consultations through their app, complete with the use of their AR tech to apply virtual looks during those appointments.

Sheet masks have become increasingly popular. Made of bamboo, cotton, or cellulose, the masks are soaked in serums designed to clear, calm, brighten, and plump up skin. Among the ingredients are niacinamides, pepetides, propanediol, betaine, and vitamin C. But now beauty technology has taken sheet masks to the next level. The mask is an insulated, flexible, conductive veil. A water-soluble gel . Electric currents are pulsed through conductive plates by a generator.

Where sheet masks are worn for five to 15 minutes, electric current conductive face masks take about a half-hour. Amorepacific developed a 3D-printing system under its skincare brand, IOPE, that produces a personalized, made-to-measure mask. Biologique Recherche is one company that not only offers electric current sheet masks but support the technology with next-level sleep aids so the all-important sleep you need to stay healthy and look well becomes a part of your daily routine. The company’s “My Beauty DNA” app can also analyze your skin’s predisposition to collagen breakdown, photoaging, and sensitivity through a custom DNA analysis.

So, what does this mean for you? Setting aside time from your busy schedule to spend a couple of hours in a department store selecting new beauty products is rapidly becoming obsolete.

Choose your favorite brand, download their augmented beauty app, schedule an online consultation with a “live” beauty specialist, to start. Use a Smart Skincare Device to mix the perfect foundation, moisturizer, lip color. Order online and two days later, it’s delivered to your door. You never have to leave the comfort of your home—and to think, you did it all on your cellphone, device, or computer. Welcome to the Beauty Tech Age. ■

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food&dining

dinner with a view

BY WINIFRED TOWNSEND

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AQUA SHARD’s Elements of Life signature cocktail, “The Clipper,” presents a complex combination of smokey, fruity, sweet and sour flavor, derived from a combination of Asparagus Don Julio blanco, dry sherry, beech-smoked pineapple, roasted hazelnut, Earl Grey tea, grapefruit juice and sesame.

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High up on level 31 of The Shard is AQUA SHARD, a sleekly designed restaurant with lofty, three-story high dining glass walls that command stunning views of London. Above: “Not an English Breakfast” cocktail at Aqua Shard combines English breakfast tincture, Amaro Del Capo, infused cocoa, banana milk, Zacapa 23 rum and a dash of ginger ale.

iercing the clouds like a splinter of glass is the most recent addition to London’s dynamic skyline—The Shard. It is the product of the ambitious vision of the late property magnate Irvine Sellar, famously acclaimed as the high-profile fashion retailer who ignited the Carnaby Street revolution in the heart of “swinging London” in the 1960s, and founder of the UK’s second largest fashion chain, “Mates by Irvine Sellars,” the first fashion retailer to sell men’s and women’s clothing from the same store, in shops throughout the country. In the early 1980s, Sellar sold his retailing business and ventured into commercial real estate development with the Sellar Property Group. In 1998, he and two partners acquired and demolished Southwark Towers in the London Bridge Station quarter of the city and upon that footprint, erected a striking 1,400-foot tall “vertical city where people can live, work, and relax.” Designed in 2000 by internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano, construction broke ground in 2009 and in 2012, two weeks before the Opening Ceremonies of the London Olympic Games, the hotel was inaugurated by Prime Minister of Qatar, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber Al Thani.

The Shard’s dynamic structure houses world-class offices, exclusive residences, the posh 5-star ShangriLa Hotel, and seven award-winning restaurants, topped by the 360-degree “View from The Shard,” the United Kingdom’s highest viewing gallery, which allows visitors to “see London as it had never been seen before.” In February 2016, the Outpatients and Diagnostics Centre of HCA Healthcare UK opened on the 4, 5, and 6 floors, accommodating up to 600 patients a day. Renzo’s Shard Place, the third phase of the 2.5 million square-foot regeneration of the wider London Bridge Quarter, featuring 176 sleek, modern, lateral apartments that offer its residents world-class amenities and round-the-clock concierge service, was developed in a partnership between Sellar with the State of Qatar. The man who redefined London’s skyline died at the age of 82, in 2017.

Central to the singular luxury lifestyle at The Shard are its seven restaurants. Each is unique yet all present signature menus that feature fresh, seasonal ingredients, diverse wine and drink lists, and refined dining experiences.

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HUTONG: Named after the historical narrow streets and courtyards of Peking constructed during China’s dynastic periods as early as 1027 BC, hutong, a Mongolian term in origin, means “water well.”

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Located on Level 34, SKY LOUNGE offers an elegant, relaxing atmosphere where guests can socialize and unwind while taking in breathtaking views of London.

Opposite: Sichuan-style deep fried lobster with chilli, black beans, and dried garlic is just one of the deliciously presented a la carte dishes offered at HUTONG. PHOTOGRAPH BY @LATEEF.PHOTOGRAPHY

qua Shard’s Elements of Life signature cocktail, “The Clipper,” presents a complex combination of smokey, fruity, sweet and sour flavor, derived from a combination of Asparagus Don Julio blanco, dry sherry, beech-smoked pineapple, roasted hazelnut, Earl Grey tea, grapefruit juice and sesame.

The first Aqua restaurant opened 18 years ago and today, boasts over 25 high-end venues in London, New York, Miami, Beijing, Dubai, and Hong Kong, each reflecting its own, unique philosophy. Aqua Shard, on the 31st floor of The Shard, is an especially spectacular place to dine, with 360-degree views of London pouring through the awardwinning restaurant’s floor-to-ceiling glass windows.

Its contemporary menu always uses seasonal ingredients. Tempting as a starter is Venison Carpaccio with pumpkin hummus and blackberry dressing, paired with a 2019 Nero d’Avola Sherazade Donnafugata from Sicily. For a main course, fresh-caught Cornish sea bass is served with pearl barley, cockles risotto, winter radish salad, and paired with a young, elegant 2021 Pouilly-Fumé Domaine Chauveau from France’s Loire Valley. Shard Trifle, Aqua Shard’s take on a traditional English dessert, is coconut sponge laced with Chantilly crème and blood orange, and paired with a 10-yearold Delaforce Tawny Port from Real Companhia Velha, Portugal.

Dinner? Start with Beef tartare in a Bloody Mary gel with egg yolk emulsion, served with toasted sourdough bread.

For a main course, Kent Spring Lamb with aubergine puree and English feta, cucumber, black olive and red onion tart is comfort food with a side of Tiptoe Farm potato mash with Glastonbury organic whey butter and gravy. Complete dinner with a plate of Corra Linn, Colston Bassett Stilton, and Elrick Log, served with homemade oat cakes and to set it all off, strawberries, apple, and pear purée. From Aqua Shard’s incredible wine list, pair the cheese plate with a glass of Oloroso, Don Gonzalo VOS (Valdespino) Jerez from Spain, with its complex notes of bitter almonds, hazelnuts, incense, Cuban cigar ash, and dark chocolate.

PETER PAN AFTERNOON TEA

So imaginative and adventurous is Aqua Shard’s afternoon tea, inspired by J. M. Barrie’s classic “boy who never grew up,” Peter Pan. For a savory, choose from “Baked Pig” (pork sausage in puff pastry), “An Enormous Mushroom Chimney” made from bread and duxelles mushrooms, and “Codfish Captain Hook,” deep-fried fish formed in the shape of the captain’s hook! The “Lost Boys Chicken and Bacon Sandwich” and “Little Bird Egg Salad Sandwich” are sandwich options and for sweets, try “Peter’s Secret Never Tree Entrance” and “Hook’s Perish Cake,” a lime greencolored Victoria cake with fondant icing. And for a ‘cuppa,’ try the blended, faintly sweet “Darling Tea,” which has a delicate floral finish, or “Adventure Tea,” a fruity blended black tea. Most delectable of all is The Shard donates a portion of every Peter Pan Afternoon Tea served to the Great Ormand Street Hospital’s Children’s Charity.

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The highest hotel bar in Western Europe, GŎNG, derives its name from dougong, “a unique structural element of interlocking wooden brackets used in traditional Chinese architecture,” which sets the understated tone of the bar’s intimate chambers, champagne bar, cocktail bar . . . and a swimming pool. • Opposite: The Vogager Zheng Drinks menu is a veritable Asian journey conducted by GŎNG’s mixologists’ inspired travels through China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong—truly exotic worlds in a glass.

ar 31, which is located on the ground floor, offers an amazing selection of drinks of all sorts and delicious bar food, proudly serving locally sourced ingredients from some of London’s most skilled growers and producers, and local craft beers—some of which are brewed just down the street.

Whether it’s a pint from nearby Bermondsey Breweries, a glass of affordable wine, or a flute of celebratory Champagne, Bar 31 makes for a welcome end to a harried workday or exhausting tourist trail for locals and visitors alike. Have a gin and tonic, Martini, or Bar 31’s signature mixed gin drinks made with Botanist Selection Dry Gin. On tap there’s Fuller’s Session IPA, Peroni Nastro Azzurro Lager, Grolsch Pilsner, Meantime Anytime IPA and if you’d rather, a lovely Cornish Orchards draught cider. Aperol Spritz is a mainstay of the drinks’ menu and from across the pond, Long Island Iced Tea, made with gin, vodka, tequila, orange liquor and rum. Finally, one could choose a Pimm’s Cup or other Liqueur to wash down a plate of bar food, such as a Chicken Schnitzel Roll, a charcuterie platter, or a prosciutto and mushroom pizzette.

The highest hotel bar in Western Europe derives its name from dougong, “a unique structural element of interlocking wooden brackets used in traditional Chinese architecture,” which sets the understated tone of the bar’s intimate chambers, champagne bar, cocktail bar . . . and a swimming pool.

The menu is inspired by simplicity and sustainability, a creative marriage of cocktails paired with Far Eastern-inspired specialties, such as Futomaki with mixed vegetables, Prawn Dragon Roll, Chicken Gyoza, Chef Choice sashimi plates, and a specialty of the house, GŎNG Truffle Fries with Parmesan shavings. Uniquely, GŎNG introduces a new concept, Liquid Afternoon Tea, an alternative to traditional English tea when, between noon and 4 p.m., guests can partake in “tea-inspired tipples, accompanied by a selection of sweet and savory fare,” pared with miniature cocktails.

Indeed, an impressive cocktail menu distinguishes GŎNG and particularly, its mixed drinks, such as Deluxe Pornstar Martini, which is a combination of Beluga Gold Line, passion fruit, vanilla, and Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label NV; and signature cocktails created by GŎNG’s mixologists, such as Tommaso’s “Curagua,” a combination of Canaïma gin, yellow Chartreuse, pineapple Verjus, Cherry Blossom, and Lavender; or Michela’s “Sueño de Coco,” an elegant coconut drink made with Diplomático Planas rum. The Vogager Zheng Drinks menu is a veritable Asian journey conducted by GŎNG’s mixologists’ inspired travels through China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Hong Kong—truly exotic worlds in a glass.

Inspired by the Lu School of cuisine of Shandong Province, Hutong’s menu captures the subtlety and unique flavors of Northern Chinese cuisine. Influenced by ingredients used in traditional Chinese medicine, the cocktail selection is as divine as it is unique and the atmosphere—with its panoramic views of London, stunning Chinese interior, handcarved Moon Gates, and red lanterns—is contemplative and exotic. Open for lunch and dinner, Hutong’s signature prix fixe dinner menu is an experience unto itself; Lobster Dumpling with Sichuan Chili sauce (pictured), Tender Squid in Sichuan Peppercorn and Chili oil, and Wagyu Beef in Hot and Sour Broth. The impressive wine selection, by the glass or the bottle, ranges in price from a glass of 2021 Ai Galera “Mistico” from Portugal for £10.50, to a bottle of 2007 Bienvenues-Bâtard-Montrachet Grand Cru from Côte de Beaune for £1100.00. Rather than dine, meet up with friends at Hutong’s Shanghai Bar, one of London’s most popular night spots.

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Located on the 35th floor, TĪNG is The Shard’s highest dining experience, designed with glass walls and an understated decor that allows magnificent views of London to pour in. Opposite: Incredible creations by executive chef Paolo Belloni make dining at TĪNG a gastronomic experience.

One of the most sophisticated, contemporary restaurants in all of London is Oblix, high up on The Shard’s 32nd floor. The space is divided between Oblix West, with its refined, relaxed urban décor and the higher energy that radiates from Oblix East.

Dine on traditional fare at Oblix West, such as Jumbo Prawn Cocktail to start and signature oblix pepper steak for the main. What’s more, Oblix West has a wonderful a la carte menu that features a seafood and beef raw bar, delectable starters like Crispy Squid Chili and additional choices for the main include lime, and fresh-from-the-ocean, Grilled Line-Caught Seabass with lemon hollandaise sauce, BBQ Black Cod with coriander salsa, whole Dover Sole with garlic, butter, and capers, and Whole Lobster with lemon verbena and garlic butter. Oblix West’s amazing selection of steaks and large cuts of beef is second to none and the potato has an entire menu selection all to itself. For a true culinary experience, order the Chef ’s Tasting Menu, a rotating selection of nine dishes for the whole table to share (minimum two people.) Oblix East, which is open for lunch, dinner, afternoon tea, and weekend brunch, adds music to their menu with live DJ music and vocalists Thursday, Fridays, and Saturdays that gives a vibe to the lively décor, drinks, and delicious dishes.

Light bites and a varied, extensive, and impressive selection of drinks—notably, its signature Veuve Clicquot cocktails—make the Sky Lounge one of the most sought-after bars in all London. Its small plates are gastronomic jewels and among the menu’s treats are Buttermilk Doughnuts served with fresh Parmesan, sour cream and chives; Beef Tartar served with anchovy ketchup, a Footlong Hotdog served with Tom’s Whole-Grain Mustard and sauerkraut, and for vegetarians, a Fried Aubergine Sandwich served with Sriracha mayonnaise. Top it off with a Raspberry and Lychee Pavlova to share composed of crunchy raspberry meringue, vanilla custard, lychee panna cotta, and raspberry sorbet. Sky Lounge also serves Sunday Brunch.

Marrying time-honored Asian cuisine with classic British food, TĪNG serves breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of the week and afternoon tea, besides. This is the place for hearty traditional English breakfast fare such as eggs with streaky bacon, Cumberland sausage, and black pudding. A seasonal summer “Experience” menu in association with FT Weekend and Champagne Laurent-Perrier, includes an Amuse Bouche of Carlingford Oyster in ginger and lime gel topped with King’s Caviar, Soy-glazed Dingley Dell Pork cutlet and belly with bok choy and Wood Ear Mushroom Salad, finished with Coconut Mousse with mango and passion fruit compote topped with matcha ice cream. A five-course set menu includes tuna and salmon roll, beef tataki, grilled tiger prawns, 28-day dry aged beef fillet, and for dessert, chocolate mousse and salted toffee Crémeux topped with miso ice cream and gilt with gold chocolate. ■ Editor’s note: For more information on dining at one of The Shard’s excellent restaurants, please visit the-shard.com.

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One of the most sophisticated, contemporary restaurants in all of London is OBLIX, high up on The Shard’s 32nd floor. The space is divided between Oblix West, with its refined, relaxed urban décor and the higher energy that radiates from Oblix East.

PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD SOUTHALL @ EMPHASIS PHOTOGRAPHY

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arilyn Monroe said,“There are no women who do not like perfume. There are women who have not yet found their scent.” More than 92-percent of all women wear perfume every day, which drives a global industry north of $33 billion a year. The scent a woman wears is as personal as her choice of hairstyle, jewelry, and the shade of lipstick and clothes she wears. “Packaging can be theatre, it can create a story,” said the late Steve Jobs, who understood the value of presentation all too well. Precious perfumes in gem-encrusted, handblown crystal atomizers conjure the stories of Ali Baba, pirate ships, and the treasure-troves of monarchs and emperors. Such a flask of perfume can be yours, too—given a million dollars. ■

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1. DKNY GOLDEN DELICIOUS The bottle comes bundled with 2,909 precious stones, 2,700 white diamonds, 183 yellow sapphires, a 7.18 carat Srilankan Cabochon sapphire, a 1.65-carat Brazilian turquoise Paraiba tourmaline, four pear-shaped rose-cut diamonds, and fifteen Australian pink diamonds. - (USD $1 million) dkny.com 2. LALIQUE SOLEIL LALIQUE CRYSTAL EDITION Extrait de Parfum ($23,971 1500ML) harrods.com 3. SHALINI PARFUM AMOREM ROSE PARFUM presented in a Lalique Crystal Flacon - ($3,000 1 oz. / 30 mL) bergdorfgoodman.com/ 4. SHUMUKH perfume is the world’s most expensive perfume. Shumukh is known for registering its name in Guinness World Record for having the most diamonds set on a perfume bottle and the tallest remote-controlled fragrance spray product. - (USD $1.29 million) thespiritofdubai.com 5. CLIVE CHRISTIAN NO. 1 IMPERIAL MAJESTY - (USD $12,722 per ounce) clivechristian.com

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the scent of luxury

BY SINDIE FITZGERALD-RANKIN

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by Laurie Bogart Wiles

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Six-year-old Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler at her family home in Vienna, in 1918.

JOHN SPRINGER COLLECTION / CORBIS / CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Below: Poster for Ecstasy, a 1933 Czech art film. in which “Heddie Kietzler” revealed more than her talent as the first nude to appear in a commercial motion picture.

OPPOSITE: Hedy Lamarr studio portrait by legendary photographer George Hurrell (United Artists, 1938).

was handsome like she was gorgeous. The moment their paths collided the two rising stars ignited like a supernova. They had been drawn to Tinseltown like moths to a flame. She immigrated from Vienna and he, from New York. Now she was a film star, under contract for $500 a week—four times more than any other ingenue was paid. He was a screenwriter, under contract for a staggering $2,000 a week. This, when a cup of coffee cost a nickel.

The year was 1937 and their affair wouldn’t last. They became lovers—maybe even that first night—but it couldn’t continue. She was engaged to another famous screenwriter, and he was having a clandestine affair with the wife of an important Hollywood director.

One day, he invited her on the set of a movie he was working on. As they were filming, she stood behind the camera and watched a scene play out— “That’s a mysterious control box for the radio over there,” the bartender explains to Topper as he pours him another Scotch in Topper Takes a Trip. “It’s a new gadget just out, see? You dial your extension here, and you hear it over there.”

“Well, where are the wires?” Topper asks.

“There isn’t any wires, that’s the trick!” the bartender explains.

In that moment, Hedy Lamarr conceived an idea that, quite literally, would change the world.

Her natural calling was inventing, not acting.

Tragically, the world only ever valued her face, never her mind. Not since Italian Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli painted The Birth of Venus in 1480 had there been such a beauty.

Her canvas was the silver screen, and low-key lighting captured her smoldering, mysterious, dark exquisiteness. She was like no other femme fatale Hollywood had ever seen—not Garbo, not Dietrich, to whom she was often compared; no, not until after the War, when Marilyn burst onto the scene. Hedy Lamarr consumed the air men breathed. Acting, however, was the lesser part of a sensational life that played out with more drama than any of the 30 films she made. Now, two decades after her death, the Most Beautiful Woman in the World is finally acknowledged as something far greater: the Mother of Modern Technology.

Hedy was the most recognizable, stunningly beautiful screen actress of her day. Smart, ambitious, outspoken, and controversial, she was Walt’s inspiration for Snow White in his 1937 animated musical fantasy, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and in 1940, DC Comics’s

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IMAGE COURTESY HERITAGE AUCTIONS / HA.COM

Catwoman, Batman’s greatest female adversary. “She was the best-looking movie star that ever lived,” Mel Brooks declared.

Unhappily, her goddess-like image overwhelmed her own reality.

Even post-1960s feminists couldn’t see beyond her beauty to acknowledge her extraordinary, scientific mind.

“I am a very simple, complicated person. I don’t have to work on ideas. They come naturally,” explained one of the greatest minds in the forefront of modern technology. All laptops, computers, and mobile phones that connect to the Internet today use Hedy’s invention, “rapid frequency hopping”, which she

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Hedy in a publicity photo for the 1944 motion picture, The Heavenly Body, her second film with William Powell.

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Hedy as Sandra Kolter in the 1941 motion picture, Ziegfeld Girl.

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EDVIG EVA MARIA KIESLER was born November 9, 1914, in Vienna, Austria. Her father, Emil Kiesler, a Galician-Jew, was the successful, highly respected director of CreditanstaltBankverein, Austria’s leading financial institution and the bank of Bohemian high society. His wife, Hedy’s mother, was Gertrude Lichtwitz Kiesler (Trude), sixteen years younger than he and the daughter of an upper-class Jewish family from Budapest. Neither of her parents ever acknowledged they were Jews, and they raised their daughter Catholic. “I never heard ‘Jewish’ from my parent’s lips,” Hedy later acknowledged. “‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ my mother would say. The Jewish part, she just left behind.”

Emil was a “unicorn father”—meaning, a man who would do anything for his child—and he believed Hedy was truly capable of doing anything she set her mind to. She absolutely adored him. It was he who introduced her to technology and its application in society. Emil would make time to take his little girl on daily strolls through the park or walks through town. Always encouraging, he fed her natural curiosity by explaining how things worked.

Trude was 20-years-old when she had Hedy.

Obliged to give up her dream of becoming a concert pianist, and embittered that Hedy was not the son she so desperately desired, Trude, unlike her husband, was emotionally reserved with her only child. “She never told me I was attractive,” Hedy reflected years later. “She would say, ‘You look very well.’”

It was the turn-of-the-century, a tumultuous time the world-over, and the mood of Vienna was changing. Hapsburg rule had dominated eastern and central Europe for a half-millennium, and the aging Emperor Franz Joseph I, the longest-reigning ruler of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, had been troubled by nationalism since acceding to the throne in 1848. Creative and powerful thinkers who flocked to Vienna were demanding change. Neurologist Sigmund Freud was treating “pathologies in the psyche” using a clinical method he developed and named psychoanalysis. Dissatisfied young progressives, such as Expressionist painter Gustav Klimt and radical composer Arnold Schoenberg, defied conventions in art and music. Cabaret goddess Anita Berber, “the high priestess of debauchery,” challenged sexual taboos that would be considered shocking even today.

The streets of Vienna were awash with cocaine, gambling dens, pornographic shows, gay bars, and transvestite clubs on every corner. Nudity was an everyday part of life and censorship was abolished. Mainstream culture was dominated by subversives and intellectuals known as Freikorperkultur, or FKK. Hitler engaged the working class and incited political unrest to lay the foundation of the Nazi Party.

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he Kiesler family lived in the fashionable 17th District, at 12 Peter Jordan Strasse. Vienna was built with Jewish money. Like others of their class, Emil and Trude were patrons of the opera and theater and began taking Hedy with them when she was only four-years-old. She attended a private girl’s school—among her classmates were Sigmund Freud’s daughters, Sophie and Anna—and when Hedy was fourteen, she was sent to a finishing school in Switzerland. Bored and unhappy, she forged a note from her parents and returned Vienna. Although her parents were furious, she convinced them not to send her back, and instead she found a job as a script clerk at Vienna’s largest movie studio.

The year was 1930, and Hedy was now sixteen-years-old. Germany was unstable and near collapse. Crippled by the Great Depression, the country had never regained its position or power after its defeat in World War I. To forget their troubles, Germans flocked to the cinema by the droves. Certain she was destined to become a film star, Hedy auditioned for small roles in free-spirited, independent films. Growing up in Vienna, it was natural for her to be comfortable with her sexuality, so when she was approached by photographers to be photographed in the nude, she agreed—without her parents’ knowledge.

In August of 1931, Hedy left Vienna for Berlin, the heart of Europe’s film industry, where there was greater opportunity for an aspiring starlet.

Immediately she got parts in films and on stage, but it was her first major motion picture, Gold on the Streets, cast opposite Peter Lorre (The Maltese Falcon, Cassablanca) , that led to the role that would change her life.

Max Reinhardt was the preeminent director of art films. He had seen Hedy in Gold on the Streets and mesmerized by her beauty, cast her as Eva, the lead—and only female—role in Ecstasy. Embolden

by Lady Chatterley’s Lover, written by Irish author D. H. Lawrence four years before, Ecstasy also was about a well-bred woman entrapped in an impotent marriage. Hedy was perfect in the role of a young woman experiencing her awakening female sexuality. Just seventeenyears-old, she became cinema’s first nude, swimming naked in one sequence and notoriously, simulating an orgasm in the film’s climax.

Filming took place in Czechoslovakia, Prague, and the Carpathian Mountains. “The breeze was refreshing on my body,” Hedy

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developed for the U.S. military in World War II—and without which, the Allied Forces might never have achieved victory over Hitler and the Axis Powers.

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William Powell, Hedy Lamarr and James Craig star in Heavenly Body, where the beautiful wife of a tweedy astronomer becomes convinced that her astrologer’s prediction of a new dream man in her life will come true.

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recollected. On February 18, 1933, Ecstasy was released. Critics called it “tasteful erotic art.” The public called it pornography. The Pope condemned it. Hedy said, “My father wanted to kill me!”

Hedy continued to act until August 1933, when she became Mrs. Friedrich Alexander Maria Mandl. Thirteen years her senior, “Fritz” Mandl proposed to Hedy one week after they had met. Chairman and owner of Hirtenberger Patronen-Fabrik, the largest munitions manufacturer in Europe and arms dealer to Europe’s Fascist regimes, Mandl, a Jew, was called the “Henry Ford of Austria” but after war broke out, he was known as the “Merchant of Death.” Hedy told the press, “I’m so happy about my engagement that I am unable to be sad about my departure from the stage.”

They went on an extended honeymoon to Paris, Nice, Cannes, Venice, the Lido, where they dined, danced, sunbathed, and swam. Afterwards, they made their home Schloss Schwarzenau, a massive, hilltop Renaissance castle built in 1197 with 25 guest rooms. Fritz gave his wife everything—servants, fine clothes, incredible jewels—but he refused to allow her to return to acting. Hedy’s new role was to be beautiful, a charming hostess, and an armpiece for her husband. The couple hosted lavish suppers and long hunting weekends and Hedy played her part right up to the hilt, hunting, riding, and shooting, which she enjoyed, once taking an imperial stag at 350-meters with a Browning rifle. An enormous asset to Fritz in business, there is some speculation that more than Hedy’s charms helped secure important military contracts with Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, who were frequent guests until the storm clouds of war began gathering over Europe.

In 1937, Hedy’s beloved father died from a massive heart attack.

By now her marriage had become oppressive. Fiercely jealous and suspicious, Mendl ordered the maids to listen in on his wife’s phone

calls. Servants were ordered to watch her every move.

Then, one evening during a large lavish dinner party the couple was hosting at the schloss, Hedy excused herself to powder her nose and summoned her maid.

She offered her maid a cup of tea, which she drank, and fell unconscious. Hedy had put a sleeping draught in the tea. She put on the maid’s uniform, left without being noticed, and escaped on a bicycle, her fur coat flung over the handlebars, her jewels carefully sewn into the lining of the coat. Eventually she made it to London and was taken in by family friends. There she would encounter the most powerful man in Hollywood—Louis B. Mayer.

Mayer had come to London to offer cheap contracts to European film actors who had fled the Nazis. Hedy arranged an interview at his hotel and was offered $125 a week. She refused, saying it wasn’t enough, but quickly had second thoughts. Learning that Mayer was leaving for the United States on the S.S. Normandy, Hedy booked passage. The first evening at sea, dressed in her best couture gown and jewels, she sauntered by Mayer’s table. He was dining with his wife and Hollywood actor Douglas Fairbanks. Fairbanks whispered something to Mayer, Mayer snapped his fingers, and got Hedy’s attention.

She later recalled she didn’t know what that meant but then and there, the Hollywood mogul offered her a seven-year contract at $500 a week. But her Jewish last name wouldn’t do. Mayer’s wife said she liked an actress named Lamarr, and they were at sea—la mar—and in that moment, Hedy Lamarr was born.

In

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Cover of The Stars and Stripes, November 19, 1945, featuring one of the few articles that slipped out into the press about Hedy’s invention of radio-controlled guidance system.

The U.S. Military quickly quashed all publicity regarding her top-secret invention.

PICTORIAL PRESS LTD / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Opposite: Spencer Tracy was Hedy’s co-star in the 1940 motion picture, I Take This Woman, directed by W.S. Van Dyke and based on a short story by Charles MacArthur.

Hedy and Tracy would make three films together—their last, Tortilla Flat, in 1942.

ENTERTAINMENT PICTURES / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

Hollywood, Hedy worked like a racehorse. Immediately she began filming her first Hollywood picture, Algiers, opposite French heartthrob Charles Boyer, and became an overnight sensation.

Years later, Mel Brooks revealed, “When I was a kid, I saw her in Algiers. I said, ‘I’m going to get to Hollywood and I’m going to marry her, and if I don’t get to marry her, I’ll get to buy dinner and feel her up under the table—whatever I can get.’”

Now Hedy’s sultry image was plastered on the cover of every fan magazine. Somehow in her hectic film schedule she managed to marry her second husband, Gene Markey, a portly Hollywood screenwriter. But Markey, who had a reputation of being a society playboy, was unfaithful and four months later, Hedy petitioned for divorce.

After Algiers, Hedy made a string of mediocre films and some bad choices, turning down the classic film noir, Laura, which made Gene Tierney a star, and two films she rejected that were then given to a Swedish actress named Ingrid Bergman: Casablanca and Gaslight. Just when it appeared her career was on the downslope, along came Boom Town with Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy and her career soared.

At heart Hedy wasn’t a social person. After a long day on the set, she would go to her trailer, which her then-lover Howard Hughes had specially outfitted for

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Upon interviewing Lamar, writer Howard Sharpe gave his impression: “Hedy has the most incredible personal sophistication. She knows the peculiarly European art of being womanly; she knows what men want in a beautiful woman, what attracts them, and she forces herself to be these things.

She has magnetism with warmth, something that neither Dietrich nor Garbo has managed to achieve.”

CINECLASSICO / ALAMY STOCK PHOTO

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he unprovoked attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, catapulted the United States into World War II. Unprepared, the government had to come up with a way to finance the vast military expense and turned to Hollywood. Almost every major motion picture star hit the road to sell war bonds—Marlene Dietrich, Dorothy Lamour, Irene Dunne, Greer Garson, Merle Oberon, Rita Hayworth, and tragically, Carole Lombard, Clark Gable’s wife, whose private plane crashed when she was returning from a war bond drive.

Generating instant cash made Americans feel involved in the war effort and determined to show her loyalty to her adopted country, Hedy traveled to sixteen cities in ten days and sold $25 million-worth—the equivalent to $180 million today. When actors such as Clark Gable, James Stewart, Mickey Rooney, and Henry Fonda enlisted and went off to fight, Hedy worked alongside actresses Betty Grable, Lauren Bacall, Lucille Ball, Tallulah Bankhead, Olivia de Havilland, Ginger Rogers and others at the Hollywood Canteen in Los Angeles, cooking, serving, washing up, and kissing the boys goodbye before they shipped out to Europe or the Pacific.

In 1940, Nazi U-boats were torpedoing English ships and Germany was on the verge of winning the war. U-boats had attacked and sunk over 1,000 ships carrying more than 75 million tons of war material,

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her as a laboratory. Intellectually, Hughes was a kindred spirit but in bed he was “the worst lover I ever had.” Captivated by her brilliant mind more than her beauty, he introduced Hedy to all his scientists. “He said, ‘Anything you want, my scientists can do for you. Just ask them and they will do it. Howard relied on me.” At the time, Howard was immersed in designing the “Hughes Flying Boat,” a massive wooden aircraft better known as the Spruce Goose, then the largest aircraft ever built. With the wingspan of a football field, powered by eight giant propeller engines, with a capacity of 700, Hughes designed the Spruce Goose before Pearl Harbor as a troop carrier, predicting America would enter the War. He showed Hedy his plans. “I thought the airplane was too slow and decided that’s not right,” Hedy later related. “They shouldn’t be square, the wings, I told Howard. So, I bought a book of birds, and I bought a book of fish, and connected it with the fastest fish, and I drew it together and showed it to Howard. And he said, ‘You’re a genius!’ He was a very strange person that was very brilliant, but very misunderstood, as well.”

Despite its successful maiden flight, which Hughes piloted, the Spruce Goose never went into production—or ever flew again.

severing the supply lifeline between the United States and Europe. Winston Churchill, England’s Prime Minister and historically, its greatest leader, said the U-boat peril was the only thing that terrified him.

Hedy felt helpless. She wanted to do more. It was then she remembered the wireless radio remote scene she saw being filmed in Topper Takes a Trip. “You can’t control radio communication,” she reasoned.

“They’re not secure. The enemy finds the frequency in which you’re talking to the torpedo and jams it. I got the idea for my invention when I tried to think of some way to even the balance for the British. A radiocontrolled torpedo, I thought, would do it.”

Germans were filling the air with radio interference while intercepting Allied frequencies. Hedy invented a way to guide the torpedo to the target that couldn’t be interrupted. Instead of transmitting on just one frequency, she reasoned, “What if we change those frequencies constantly and sync with each other? You couldn’t jam it because you’d only jam a split second of it in a single frequency, so frequency changing, frequency hopping, hop, hop, hop…” Her concept of secure radio communication was a brilliant, profoundly original idea and she named her revolutionary radio-controlled guidance system “rapid frequency hopping.” Rather than one, 88 separate frequencies were programed to transmit a single radio message or command. Unpredictable and unhackable, no two frequencies were alike and no two were conducted at the same speed, making it impossible for the enemy to intercept. Hedy had been working with pianist George Antheil, and it was he who came up with number 88, the number of keys on a piano. They were awarded U.S. Patent 2,292, 387 on August 11, 1942. But the government became concerned that the inventor, an internationally renowned movie star, would not be able to keep the top-secret weapon secret, and so Hedy was identified an “enemy alien” and seized the patent. “I don’t understand,” she said. “They used me for selling bonds when I am an alien, and I invent something for this country, and I am an alien?” Not until 40 years later was it revealed that Hedy’s invention was a major factor in the Allied Forces’ victory in World War II. Nor was she ever compensated for her patent. If she had, it is estimated her personal fortune today would be valued at $20 billion.

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hroughout the war, Hedy continued to make movies. The most notable was White Cargo and her sultry line, “I am Tondelayo,” became the only memorable thing in an otherwise unmemorable film made, pretty much, as a distraction for the troops. “I had to develop a protective shell around me,” Hedy shrugged. “I was not respected like Garbo or Dietrich.”

For years Mayer had kept her on a tight leash and after the War, she severed her ties with MGM. The abrupt change came at a time when Hollywood wanted a new face—and that face was Marilyn Monroe. With her career on the wane, Hedy once

Hedy co-starred with Robert Taylor in the forgettable 1939 drama, Lady of the Tropics, as Manon deVargnes Carey.

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Hedy Lamarr was married six times and had three children. Here she is pictured with her son, Anthony, and daughter, Denise, from her third marriage, to British film actor John Loder.

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atan himself taught her all the arts of deception. No man leaves Delilah!” the studio press office hyped.

DeMille had a hunch that American audiences hadn’t yet had enough of Hedy, and his hunch proved right: no one could have played the seductive, steamy, languid temptress Delilah like Hedy. Heralded as her best-ever performance, the film was nominated for five Academy Awards and won two. Samson and Delilah was an overnight smash and became the second highest grossing film of the decade, surpassed only by Gone with the Wind.

From that point on, however, Hedy’s life and career took a nosedive from which she would never recover. Her last film was The Lives of Three Queens, which she personally bankrolled, but she couldn’t find distribution and lost everything. “I was a good artist but a very bad business person,” she conceded.

Her marriage and relationship with her three children collapsed.

In 1952, her fourth marriage lasted a matter of minutes. She placed her children in boarding schools and offloaded her oldest child, James, 13, to a surrogate family. Both of her last two marriages were brief and ended in divorce. In 1966, she was arrested for shoplifting at a department store. Though the items found in her pocketbook cost less than $100, the situation blew out of proportion and the scandal made the front page of newspapers around the world. She was tried in court, the jury found her innocent.

Although she looked wonderful for her age, Hedy was in her forties when she attempted to thwart time with plastic surgery. Ever the inventor, she instructed her surgeons where to make the incision, so the scar was left behind the ear, or knee, or in the fold of the arm. “Why isn’t that possible?”, she questioned—and proved that it always was. Today Hedy is acknowledged as a groundbreaker in plastic surgery. But she became addicted and, in the end, her face was destroyed and she was unrecognizable. She became a hermit, living on $300 a month, refusing to see her friends or family.

But this is not the end of her story. Unbeknownst to Hedy, the U.S. Navy had continued to use her patent—again and again: in the Spread Spectrum Guidance System, the billion-dollar Milstar Satellite System; in Korea and in the missile-guided torpedo system developed and low-flying surveillance aircraft during the Cuban Missile Crisis since; in drones in Vietnam, the Gulf War, and Afghanistan; in all GPS, all secure Wi-Fi, Bluetooth: all technology then, today, and in the future, utilizes the frequency hopping system originated in the mind of the most beautiful woman in the world.

At the end of her life, she learned she indeed had been entitled to compensation by the government but was told she would have had to apply for payment within six years of receiving her patent, and that period had long expired. “At this point, I didn’t even care,” she shrugged. “I got paid for my films, not for my invention. I am happy that this invention has

been so successful and that it was not done in vain.”

One day, Hedy phoned her younger son, Anthony—who, along with his sister, Denise, and older brother, James, had, in adulthood, grown close to their mother. “Do you want to hear something pretty?” she asked him. “It’s by Mother Teresa.”

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again stumbled into a series of bad choices. In 1946, she produced The Strange Woman. Well ahead of her time, a woman had never produced, directed, and starred in a major motion picture and she was shunned

by Hollywood. Undeterred, in 1947 she produced Dishonored Lady, starring opposite her third husband, actor John Loder, but post-war, movie-goers weren’t interested in a dark film about a woman who is headed towards a breakdown and attempts suicide by crashing her car. The movie, and Hedy’s marriage, failed.

In 1949, she heard that Academy Award winning director Cecil B. DeMille, who produced 70 silent and sound major motion pictures between 1914 and 1958 such spectacles as Cleopatra (1934), The Greatest Show on Earth (1953), and The Ten Commandments (1956), was making a biblical epic called Samson and Delilah. She telephoned him at once and told him, “I am Delilah.”

“People are often unreasonable and self-centered.Forgive them anyway.

“If you are kind, people may accuse you of ulterior motives.

Be kind anyway.

“If you are honest, people may cheat you. Be honest anyway.

“If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

“The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway.

“Give the world the best you have and it may never be enough. Give your best anyway.

“For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.”

Just before she died on January 19, 2000, at the age of 85, Hedy Lamarr said, “How can you understand a person who has as many phases in life as I have? I have been through a lot, my whole life.

You start to think, I have experienced everything now in life. Now I want peace.”

Walt Whitman wrote, “Peace is always beautiful.”

Pray the Most Beautiful Woman in the World found hers. ■

6 8 “The world isn’t getting any easier. With all these new inventions I believe that people are hurried more and pushed more . . . The hurried way is not the right way; you need time for everything - time to work, time to play, time to rest.”

- HEDY LAMAR

Hedy in 1966, at the age of 52, with Bill Hamilton. Desperate to retain her youthful beauty, she became addicted to plastic surgery. Her face destroyed and unrecognizable, she withdrew from the public eye and lived out her final days as a recluse.

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the intersection of technology and tradition, the diamondshaped gem of the city-state of Singapore glistens.

Shimmering with facets of Malaysian, Chinese, Indian, Arab, and British cultures, this tiny island jewel set just south of Malaysia offers the best of street and gourmet Asian food, fantastic bazaar and boutique shopping, all with the wow-factor of architectural wonders and high-tech marvels.

Valued as a strategic trading port for centuries at the crossroads of China, India, and Southeast Asia, the melting-pot population of this modern metropolis means that most locals are bilingual and proficient in English. This diversity and strategic location have helped it become one of the most innovative places in the world (and number one for innovation among Asian nations, according to the Global Innovation Index). It’s become a test market of sorts for a number of cutting-edge companies to try out new products and services before rolling them out to the rest of the world.

This embrace of the future of technology means visitors will find many attractions enhanced with augmented and virtual reality. It begins with arrival at Changi Airport, where biometric scanners are featured at the automated immigration lanes and roaming robot cleaners scrub, mop, and sanitize the floors.

Don’t be surprised to find robots throughout Singapore, in shopping malls, entertainment complexes, even in parks, all programmed to keep the city sparkling. Some feature interactive capabilities and feature “personalities” allowing visitors to scan a QR code to learn each robot’s name and function. Some are able to “wink, rap and even ‘converse’ with passers-by.”

Checking into hotels may mean using the services of A.I. concierges rather than face-to-face interactions after the Singapore Tourism Board and the Singapore Hotel Association partnered to introduce the E-Visitor Authentication System (EVA) using facial recognition technology, to allow for faster check-ins.

Mobile check-in, chatbots, and contactless payments are common. A.I.-enabled digital concierges are in place to answer guest enquiries, manage crowd size at shared facilities, and take room service orders.

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Automation and robots have even taken root in Singapore’s famous food scene, with automated machines that serve up hotpot and robot baristas who brew coffee. While more novelty than anything, what may be more futuristic are the number of world-class hotels that grow their own food through high-tech aquaponics, allowing fish and vegetable farming on-site for the ultimate in freshness for their restaurants. Intrigued? Visitors who want to learn more about the latest agricultural innovations can sign up for a guided greenhouse tour at the family-run hydroponic Kok Fah Technology Farm (or simply enjoy the weekend market).

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here there’s a melting-pot, fusion food culture thrives and Singapore is renowned as a foodie destination with iconic dishes like the spicy chili crab or a familiar roti prata (South Indian flatbread). From traditional street food to renowned local cooks to experimental chefs to world-class, Michelin-starred dining, there are more dishes to try than can ever be consumed in one trip. In Singapore even the street food (known as hawker stalls) garner Michelin stars. Look for the snaking lines at Hill Street Tai Hwa Pork Noodle on Crawford Lane or Liao Fan Hawker Chan in Chinatown Complex to try them out. The Chinatown Complex Food Centre boasts more than 250 food stalls to try. At the Amoy Street Food Centre, where there’s everything from satay (grilled meat skewers) and char kway teow (stir-fried rice noodles in dark soya sauce) to fishball noodles and curry puffs, a go-to hawker stall is that of Hong Kee Beef Noodle, where bak chang (rice dumplings) are a traditional favorite. Also at Amoy, the Michelin Bib Gourmand eatery A Noodle Story offers a noodle dish that draws inspiration from Japanese ramen (Japanese noodle soup) and local wanton mee (egg noodles served with slices of barbecued pork and bite-sized dumplings) that demonstrates the creativity of Singaporean fusion cuisine. Expect to find food with origins in Malay, Chinese, Eurasian, Indian, and what is known as Peranakan dishes (Peranakan means local-born, referring to someone with Chinese and Malay/Indonesian heritage). Kampong Gelam serves up Malay cuisine; find Indian food in Little India; Chinese food in Chinatown; and head to the historic neighborhood of Joo Chiat/Katong for Peranakan classics as well as a bit of sightseeing of the colorful traditional twostory shop houses that preserve traditional Peranakan architectural heritage.

For world-class Michelin-starred dining, nearly 50 restaurants fit the bill in this global food capital.

Marina Bay is a waterfront site located in Singapore’s central region. The bay area was created by reclaiming land around the body of water in front of Collyer Quay to form Marina Centre, Marina East and Marina South. PHOTOGRAPH BY SWAPNIL BAPAT / UNSPLASH.COM • Above: Hindu deity statues adorn a temple in Little India, while automatons and robot baristas brew coffee nearby in Singapore’s famous food markets. In a city famous for its world-class hotels and restaurants, culinary tech is elevating cuisine to a new level as they grow their own food through aquaponics, on-site fish and vegetable farming, and other agricultural innovations bent on producing the freshest ingredients for their elaborate menus. PHOTOGRAPH BY DOMINIK VANYI / UNSPLASH.COM

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The 250-acre nature waterfront park, The Gardens by the Bay, is adjacent to the Marina Reservoir.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ISAAC MATTHEW / UNSPLASH.COM

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Plan these excursions in advance though as reservations can take months to secure for some of these once-in-a-lifetimes meals. The modern French cuisine at Odette or the sublime Japanese Waku Ghin are renowned, but for more Singaporean flavors, try Labyrinth or Candlenut, which is the first Peranakan restaurant in the world to receive a Michelin Star.

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or the culinary-obsessed, travel during one of the island’s myriads of annual food festivals.

Experimental dining experiences have also cropped up, like the hidden Dragon Chamber guerrilla restaurant or the sea-themed Ocean Restaurant or even the catch-your-own-dinner novelty of Smith Marine. Food themed tours like Wok N’ Stroll or Singapore After Dark round out the fun of food adventuring. The inventiveness extends to cocktails as well, with a wealth of tastes to experience from knowledgeable, creative bartenders crafting unique combinations.

The cosmopolitan “Lion City”, as it is sometimes known, offers a roaringly active nightlife with much to experience after hours, especially during the adrenaline-fueled Grand Prix Season. Traveling during Chinese New Year or Deepavali? Head to Chinatown or Little India, respectively, to join in the festivities, applauding for the fire-eaters and lion dancers or luxuriating in the heady scents of spices and flowers in the extensive bazaars.

These neighborhoods are also known for their shopping. Visit the eclectic stalls in Chinatown, Little India, and along Haji Lane in Kampong Gelam for unique souvenirs and quirky items. Orchard Road boasts a mix of fast fashion and designer threads. And the Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands are home to boutiques like Prada, Gucci, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton, whose store is housed in a floating Crystal Pavilion and is its largest other than in Paris.

Modern innovation served Singapore well during the height of the pandemic, especially at locations like the Sands Expo and Convention Center, where a state-of-the-art broadcast studio creates 3D holographic avatars

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Above: The Singapore Zoo is located on the heavily forested margins of Upper Seletar Reservoir. Home to more than 2,400 specimens of over 300 species, the Zoo opened in 1973.

PHOTOGRAPH BY BEZIKUS / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite page: The Port of Singapore is the busiest container transhipment hub and the largest publicly owned port in the world, connecting to more than 600 ports in 123 countries.

PHOTOGRAPH BY KIRILL PETROPAVLOV / UNSPLASH.COM

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“The Lion City” has become one of the top international fashion hubs. Singapore estimates its apparel market is valued at over $3 billion—and growing.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SOFIA ZHURAVETC / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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of speakers to “beam them live” onto a physical stage, pointing the way for other places around the world to adopt this invention for global conferences and events.

The island embraces virtual reality in a number of entertainment venues, including the dozen immersive simulation rides at Headrock VR at Resorts World Sentosa. The tiny island off the southern coast boasts theme parks, golf courses, and spas along its picturesque sandy coast. Virtual reality fans should also check out the Hologate arcade at Funan with a full course of simulations for every adventurer. The island’s modern shopping malls have adopted augmented reality technology to enhance the shopping experience with self-directed catalog stations and QR-code activated projections.

Virtual experiences took center stage during the height of the pandemic and now complement in-person experiences, allowing for an immersive pre-travel visit before an in-person one. The Wildlife Reserves Singapore conducts a virtual tour of its zoo, bird park, safari, and river exhibits via an interactive video call with zookeepers. Likewise, Singapore’s ArtScience Museum’s online program, ArtScience At Home, hosts a number of online talks, screenings, performances, and workshops hosted by curators and creators for a more in-depth experience of the museum’s offerings.

Architecture-lovers can take in the juxtaposition of traditional buildings with the iconic modern skyscrapers glimmering along the skyline. Compare the hipster pre-war neighborhood of Tiong Bahru with the steely pinnacles of Raffles Place for another study in contrasts in this island nation. Other notable buildings to visit include the House of Jade, the Victoria Theater, City Hall, the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore Polytechnic, and the Van Kleef Aquarium.

One of the most iconic attractions, which also reinforces the island’s “Garden City” name, is the innovative waterfront horticultural destination of Gardens by the Bay. This futuristic showcase of horticulture and garden artistry envisions and presents the plant world in a whole new way to the delight of local and international visitors alike, earning accolades

Singapore skyline view during the night. In the picture the Marina Bay Sands hotel, the Helix Bridge and the ArtScience Museum. PHOTOGRAPH BY LILY-BANSE / UNSPLASH.COM • The best way to get around Singapore is via its Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) subway system. This underground network has lines that stretch across the entire city.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ALRIZKI MARINO / UNSPLASH.COM • The ArtScience Museum is a museum within the integrated resort of Marina Bay Sands in the Downtown Core of the Central Area in Singapore. It is well-known for its dazzling displays of modern art and installations. PHOTOGRAPH BY TOUANN GATOUILLAT VERGOS / UNSPLASH.COM

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Aerial view of the Singapore landmark financial business district. Fountain of Wealth at Suntec city in Singapore at night.

PHOTOGRAPH BY TRAVEL MAN / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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102 for its stunning, inventive architecture, which also boasts one of the world’s largest glass greenhouses.

No matter the day, something unusual is always blooming in The Flower Dome, featuring native plants from the Mediterranean to arid deserts to South African savannahs. The suspended bouquets and over-the-top floral arrangements of Floral Fantasy meander through diverse garden landscapes and a vivarium populated by brilliantly colored poison dart frogs. The aerial walkways around the Cloud Forest offer views of one of the world’s tallest indoor waterfalls set off with exotic lush mountain foliage from around the globe. The otherworldly Supertrees “forest” is an iconic highlight that climbs to the garden’s highest point for unparalleled views of the gardens and the Marina Bay from the Supertree Observatory.

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hile this modern marvel amazes, those who wish a more traditional back-to-nature experience can find many pockets of tropical greenery in this high-tech city. The largest freshwater marshland in Singapore is at Kranji Marshes, which hosts nearly 200 different species of birds and insects. Head to the observatory for an expansive view. Step back in time with a bumboat escape to the offshore island of Pulau Ubin to explore one of only two remaining kampongs (rural villages) in Singapore. Wherever you travel, know that the lush landscape of Singapore is thanks to a year-round hot and humid climate. Come prepared for rain, which can at times be torrential, but is usually brief. And of course, after a rain, everything in this charming city sparkles even more. ■

Even an arpartment building in Singapore somehow seems ultramodern with stark color and simplistic design.

PHOTOGRAPH BY ANNIE SPRATT / UNSPLASH.COM

Opposite: Asian Chinese Rice Dumpling, Zongzi.

PHOTOGRAPH BY IAMDOT / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

Opposite: 5 Taman Sireh, Hougang, Singapore.

PHOTOGRAPH BY SELINA THOMAS / UNSPLASH.COM

The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple is one of the most significant religious and cultural Buddhist institutions. Located near China Town in Singapore, it is the perfect juxtaposition of old versus new, tradition versus modern, as its facade contrasts with the Singapore city skyline at night.

PHOTOGRAPH BY HIT1912 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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A micro mini hi-low corset dress made in an iridescent silver Solstiss lace highlighted by a voluminous ruffled hemline through to the train extension.

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Appel de la Sirène

Kim Kassas Couture’s Siren Call and Deep Blue collections are inspired by the beauty and mystery of siren mermaids.

The fantastical gowns are influenced by the splendor and lure of the feminine nature. Soft and delicate at first glance, but bold and beguiling in spirit just like the sirens, the collection captures the essence of the seductive sea creatures emerging from the water to enchant and captivate.

by Samantha Paige

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109 An eccentric three piece look highlighted by a half embossed leather armor jacket adorned with buckles and religious sentiments, a micro corset top with silk chiffon draping and tailored trousers. Opposite: A micro mini turtleneck dress made in an iridescent silver Solstiss lace highlighted by a voluminous silk taffeta ruffle skirt and train extension.

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A micro mini hi-low corset dress made in an iridescent silver Solstiss lace highlighted by a voluminous ruffled hemline through to the train extension.

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An 18th Century inspired corset top with rich embellishments and drop pearl accents highlighted by a silk taffeta train draped along the hipline. The look is complete with tailored trousers.

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CORALIA

A mysterious bodysuit dress made of a netted Solstiss lace bodice and a structured organza overlay that features delicate Italian lace embroidery of coral reef designs.

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A Victorian inspired mini corset dress made of Solstiss lace featuring intricate and handmade Italian embroidery designs of mermaids with drop pearl and beaded fringe accents. The dress is paired with a navy brocade cape and gold embroidery.

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A seductive bodysuit dress made of Solstiss lace covered with a sheer beaded netting overlay with drop pearl adornments and an ironed silk chiffon train.

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Employing the venerable art of Suminagashi, the Japanese art of floating ink on water, fabric is lasercut into dyed silk, and heatbonded onto transparent tulle to flow over the body.

PHOTOGRAPHY BY GIO STAIANO

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LAGUNA GOWN

Reminiscent of an ocean whirlpool, this unique long-sleeve turtleneck dress is made of Solstiss lace with asymmetrical layers of ironed silk chiffon starting at the skirt and extending to the train.

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by Cora Walden

Paris, oil and gold leaf on panel, 44x36 inches.

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Paintings from top left to opposite right: Baltimore, oil and gold leaf on panel, 32x32 inches.

New York, oil and gold leaf on panel, 36x44 inches.

Toronto, oil and gold leaf on panel, 18x20 inches.

Dead Ends II, oil on panel, 28x28 inches.

milia Wing is a citizen of the world. The chapters of her life have unfolded across continents and oceans and in the course of time, her travels—and surprisingly her homeland—became the inspiration for her art. That she incorporates maps and photographic aerial views as the foundation of her work is therefore not surprising.

Indeed, it is as interesting as it is unusual—and the result is visually exhilarating.

“There’s something so beautiful and powerful about the way people connect with places,” Emilia observes. “Every time I start a new painting—building layer upon layer, covering then uncovering, emphasizing blurring, redefining—I’m essentially following a process that reflects my own experience.”

EARLY LIFE

That experience wasn’t always easy, even from the earliest years of Emilia’s childhood.“I was born in Poland during a politically challenging time. When I was three-years-old, my family left everything and escaped to Italy. We eventually took refuge in Canada. At that young age, I don’t think I even knew what a refugee was, but I have vivid memories of the many struggles and challenges we faced.”

With no friends, no understanding of the language, or knowledge of the customs, Emilia faced numerous challenges in her adolescent years.“When I went to school, I was embarrassed by my culture. It wasn’t cool to be foreign, to speak with an accent, to be different in any way. I really tried everything to fit in. I stopped speaking Polish in front of my friends and classmates, I stopped practicing or learning about my culture. For a time, I even changed my first name to Emily just so I could sound like a normal girl. After a while, I really did start to forget who I was and where I came from.”

Despite the confusion, and perhaps in spite of it, Emilia found solace in her art.

“It was the one space where I felt the most comfortable. The one place where I could truly be me. Looking back, what surprises me most and what I never anticipated is how my art would change me,” she said.

MAPS—THE PATHWAY TO EMILIA’S ART

Finding her style did not come easily to Emilia. “When I got to university, I had to come up with something that was my own—something that represented me. I had to dig deep to discover what I felt was important, find how to create a statement and make it my own. I

remember one day, one of my professors had me write an essay on what influenced my style, and what it was that I naturally related to, which forced me think, assess, and ponder the many things that inspired me as an artist. That’s when I started to really think about what I gravitated toward, and what influenced me most.”

Emilia’s journey was not without dead-ends and detours. “I used to do a lot of real-life compositions, drawing portraits and still-life to develop my skills. I was very classically trained.

But I got to a point in my classical training where I realized I had lost my creativity, and I started to feel it wasn’t fun anymore. I didn’t know why I was so stifled by this feeling.”

Nonetheless, she persevered. “I kept with it because I loved the art world. That’s when I started searching for what was meaningful to me.”

Emilia consciously studied the works of artists such as Gustav Klimt, Van Gogh, and Picasso who interpreted what they saw into an expression of what they felt. She, too, then diffused what she saw and absorbed her emotional response into her own work. However, the revelation that her style was actually developing did not come to her immediately.

“Around this same time, I frequently traveled. Anytime I could, even if I was on my own, I would take any opportunity to jump on a plane and discover a new place. I found that almost unconsciously, I would stare out the airplane windows, pull out my camera, and take pictures of the land below. I probably have hundreds of photos! There was something about the patterns, the colors and the textures that just drew me in. Every time, to this day, I’m still transfixed. One day, I went back over my collection of aerial view photographs I had taken during my travels and realized that this is something important. If I’m doing this every time I travel and was so fascinated by looking at the world from this perspective, there had to be a way to incorporate this into my art.”

Emilia began looking at maps as the basis of her new art perspective. “It awakened an excitement in me for the places I’d forgotten—including my own homeland that I had distanced myself from. I started painting locations I remembered from my hometown. My community where I grew up. My college campus. It was almost like recreating my life’s travelog. Different cities and landmarks brought me back to the memories of people and stories from my past.”

Emilia used those memories of her experiences—the places, smells, sights, and sounds—to not just visually capture a place but express her experience—no matter how personal. “What speaks to me most, are the places I am from that I revisited and rediscovered, because I had moved away and left all those places where I grew up and where my ancestors came from. I started painting what I was passionate about and discovered more about me on a very personal level.”

In that ah-ha moment, she realized her art was actually an outgrowth of technology—something no artist could have envisioned before 1903, when the Wright Brothers first attempted flight.

“Humankind was not used to seeing the world from an aerial view, only from the land, and only in the last 100 years have we had the technology of looking from above. We are

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so used to looking at things from a bird’s eye view. We can hop on an airplane, we can hop on the computer, hop onto Google Earth and see any place in the world. But for me, the experience is the most important. The more special the experience, the more I am motivated to paint it.”

Emilia’s work always conveys a sense of order. After all, the very nature of the layout of a map is a predisposition to geometric form, but the breadth and serene beauty of Emilia’s use of color and layering of texture creates dimensionality to her work and a depth that comes from the use of metal leafing and the juxtaposition of opposite colors of the spectrum.

Expression through color gives focus and perspective to her art. “Color is often the first thing that comes to me. When I get a warm feeling about a place, I use warm colors.

When I remember vivid aspects of a landscape, I choose colors that evoke the same emotion felt. This is a natural response that comes to an artist. It just happens.”

PRIVATE COMMISSIONS

As Emilia began to exhibit and sell her canvases, “I started to discover this shared connection to places with those who would view my art. This inspired me to paint more and to start interpreting others’ experiences. As I listened to them, they would inspire me.

One person would say, ‘Oh, this color, reminds me of this or that’ and I would translate their excitement or their rhythms with my brush strokes. Then, people started to ask me to paint locations that were meaningful to them—where their mothers grew up, or where they had some of life-changing experience.”

She began to accept commissions and soon built up a robust and steady clientele.

“I like to highlight significant areas on a map or an area that elicits a strong emotional connection with a client. That is when I use gold leaf or certain strong colors or contrasts.

There may be a special memory. Many times, if I do a painting of a client’s ancestral homeland or where someone important to them passed away, there is a strong connection and color is a good way to make that memory more vibrant visually.

“When I sit down with my clients and we talk about some of their memories and visual associations, we can come up with a really meaningful painting together that is very personal to them and reflects their own memories and personal connections. Their memories and my interpretation of those memories with aerial maps and photographs bring life to the canvases I paint. While most people might look at my art and think it’s just another abstract painting, others pick up on the fact that they’re maps, but even fewer know the stories and the memories behind each brush stroke or piece of gold leaf. I love that!”

But another aspect would take dominion of her art: her spiritual worship of God through His son, Jesus Christ.

THE JERUSALEM SERIES Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.—JOHN 8:12 The most personal and meaningful paintings Emilia has painted were inspired by the four months she spent in Jerusalem, at the university campus on the Mount of Olives.

“Living in Jerusalem was amazing. It is so rich in so many ways—the historical significance, the religious context, different religions coming together, the diversity of people, cultures— it goes on and on. It’s almost like it saturates the senses and you feel like you’ve gone back in time because so much of the landscape is preserved from 2,000 years ago.”

Emilia took in everything—the sounds, the smells, the crowds, and her memories became bathed in music and the different things that were so specific and unique to that holy place. Her preconceived expectations of the Holy City were replaced by the reality. “So many things spoke to me. Even the smallest details like the limestone,” she said. “It surprised me. It has this warm, pinky, yellowy tone to it. I wanted to remember it all and capture it in my art.”

Emilia found a religious dimension develop in her art.“I think about the roads I walked on and the views, the sounds, those hills, realizing He walked here, He ate here, He slept here. It was a new perspective, a very life-changing perspective for me. Coming from a religious background and having read about this holy place, I found it was very different than I had imagined. Different in that what I read felt like a story, but being there brought it to life. Being there gave me another layer that I tried to capture through the maps, and the rows, and walls, and landscape. Jerusalem has an enormous impact on me. I wanted to help others think about their own spiritual connection to the Lord. There is this whole other human aspect that contributes to your knowledge of Him, that place where He

Ancient Jerusalem, oil and gold leaf on panel, 36x36 inches.

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came from. It is hard to think of this divine being having been human—but that story, too, could be told—and that’s what I wanted to paint.

And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their sins.—2 Nephi 25:26, Book of Mormon

SERIES I AND II

The artist’s signature style is represented in Series I and all of Series II. Her texture is sensuous, intensified by her use of gilt, and the geometric positioning of two-dimensional planes and division of space creates movement; but it is the artist’s masterful use of color that, like Klimt, defines Emilia’s work as incredibly visually exciting. You cannot look at a Wing canvas without seeing something different as dawn to dusk to night transforms the very mood of the room in the fluctuating light. In her most recent Series III, Precious Unto Him and Feminine Touches are painted on 48-inch in diameter panels, superseding the traditional rectangular canvas. In ways like this she is constantly experimenting.

THE STUDIES

The artist favors large canvases for her complex works and smaller ones for her more spontaneous paintings. “When I do studies on location or when I hone on a specific place, street, or building, I tend to work on a smaller scale.”

Piotrkowska, Ulica, and Aleja are smaller studies of buildings painted in gouache on paper. The artist uses a minimal palette and by choosing to work in gouache, an opaque watercolor, rather than artists’ watercolor, which is transparent, she relies on the juxtaposition of two-dimensional planes to create perspective.

“Any kind of study you do, your eye is trained to draw the lines accurately. Only then can you then translate what you see into the abstract. People who have practiced and been trained achieve a quality of line and balance that translates from the technical skills they use. Portraits, for example, are one of the harder things to draw. It’s a huge challenge to draw or paint someone’s face to look like them. All studies require mastering facial symmetry, and you can only achieve that by training your eye to draw the lines in a way that’s representative of what you’re seeing.”

Sante Fe, oil and metal leaf on panel, 32x32 inches. • Opposite page, left to right: Lodz, Poland (the city where the artist was born), oil and copper leaf on panel, 36x36 inches.• Miasto, mixed media on panel, 9x12 inches.

Even the young Picasso started out painting realistic portraits. As he trained his eye, he ventured into cubism and his many periods, but the structure of his art was built on an academic foundation that allowed him to explore, generate a constant and uninterrupted flow of work, and morph into the singular styles that deem him one of the most influential artists in history.

“What you decide with your style,” Emilia points out, “is how you are going to make it your own. All that training makes your style stronger.” ■

ABOUT THE ARTIS

Emilia Wing was born in Poland, raised in Canada, and studied in Salt Lake City at Brigham Young University, where she graduated with a BFA in Studio Art. She obtained her master’s degree in Art Education at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, taught art in Washington, DC, and London, England, and worked at museums in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Today Emilia resides in Salt Lake City with her husband and their five young children. Art is an important part in her family’s life. “There is a lot of energy and excitement in our home. All of the children do arts and crafts—sometimes unexpectedly on the walls and carpets! Art enriches our house and makes it more of a home for us.” However, there is a time and place where Emilia quite literally draws the line.

“My studio space is sacred to me. I can go by myself away from everything and be inspired, and just be me and do what I need to do. It’s hard to find that space and time as a mother. I’m grateful to have it. At nighttime, when it is my only free time, I’m tired so it’s hard with children and family life to balance, but I am not pushing myself when I’m doing my art. I feel so much fulfillment and joy in my art.”

Editor’s note: For more information visit emiliawingart.com.

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A turtleneck mermaid dress and matching corset with an accentuated waistline of intricately detailed hand embroidered Solstiss lace.

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THE WOMEN WHO INSPIRE US INTERVIEWS

BY KAREN FLOYD

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Women Inspiring Women . . .

* Copy edited for length and clarity. * Interview videos are available to watch at elysianwomen.com

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LYSIAN was the result of Karen Floyd’s personal quest to tell and listen to stories about exceptional women.

On the surface, Floyd’s interviews are about women achieving, overcoming, persevering and enduring. Their authentic journeys are captured through her anecdotal interviews.

Floyd asks, “Timing, virtue, luck, funding, perseverance, faith, endurance or passion?” The answer, she concludes, “is as unique as the stories themselves.”

“There is no “secret sauce” to success nor one roadmap to achievement.” In many cases, she emphasizes, “their journey was lonely . . . yet hardship created inner strength, clarity and enlightenment.”

Floyd maintains, “With age and time, the Inspiring Women collectively recognize and identify a universal goal: making the next chapter of their lives more meaningful.”

It is that purposeful determination to give back, that Floyd mirrors the women she interviews, and shares their inspiring stories with the ELYSIAN reader.

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Barbara Interview Date: March 10. 2022

BARBARA MELVIN is the sixth president and CEO of South

PHOTOGRAPH BY DALTON ROOK BARBER

Carolina Ports, and the first woman to lead a top 10 U.S. operating container port. Prior to her unanimous appointment by the S.C. Ports Board of Directors, Barbara served the ports for 24 years, joining in 1998, during which time she served in a variety of roles. In 2015, she became senior vice president of operations and terminals and in 2018, assumed the position of Chief Operating Officer, overseeing the daily operation of the port as well as major infrastructure projects, such as the Charleston Harbor Deepening Project.

Barbara was recognized as the 2021 Woman of the Year by the South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance on International Women’s Day. She was honored at the 3rd Annual Palmetto Women’s Manufacturing Forum, which recognizes the impact of female leaders in the manufacturing field. To this Barbara observed, “I am looking forward to the day when there are not awards recognizing women in their field because it will no longer be notable, but rather there will be awards that recognize women purely for their work and contributions.”

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Other than you, in the nation’s top 10 ports, are any women serving as CEO? Not currently.

Then, let us start at the beginning. Where were you raised?

I was born and raised in Fort Valley, Georgia, which is a small town, in central west Georgia. My dad was born and raised there, also.

How would you describe your mother and father?

My father worked for Bluebird Bus Company and John Deere and was always involved with farming and agriculture. Fort Valley is known for peaches, pecans, and Bluebird Buses, which were the primary choices for work. Dad was an only child. which is often a tough relationship because nobody is good enough for an only son . . . my mother on the other hand was from Latrobe, Pennsylvania, known for Rolling Rock Beer. Her family was Polish and Italian, so her experiences growing up were different. When she moved to the south where my dad obviously lived, she had never seen a black-eyed pea. I had dramatically different influences from my parents.

a Q

You are Catholic?

I am. I was raised and educated by nuns, which is a journey in and of itself. I later attended public high school, so I received the best of both worlds. I had a good start in a smaller school and then was able to experience a lot more of what I would call the “real world” in a public high school.

You have a sister, tell me about her?

Yes, and she is one year older than me. She is a professional, the brains of our family. She went to Mercer University on a full scholarship and has always been involved with mainstreaming children into education who have difficult challenges where opportunities are lacking. She lives in New Bern, North Carolina.

Your parents moved to Charleston?

My mom and dad celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary before they moved to Charleston. I believe they were married 56 or 57 years before I moved them here. My dad passed away three years ago, in April. I think one of the most interesting things that my father ever said to me was, “You were right. I should have moved to Charleston earlier, so I could have enjoyed Charleston instead of just experiencing the

WHAT PIECE OF ADVICE CAN YOU GIVE A YOUNGER WOMAN THAT WOULD HAVE CHANGED YOUR LIFE, SOMETHING THAT WAS PIVOTAL, THAT YOU WISH YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD.

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a Q

healthcare system here.” They had a hard time having children, so I was born later in their lives.

Who had the most influence on your life?

My dad was the most influential person in my life. He died at 83 years old.

Was that expected?

It was probably overdue. He had lived such an amazing life.

Parkinson’s disease is the most devilish and destructive disease I have encountered. It not only takes your body, but then it starts to play tricks on your mind. He reached a point where he really felt like a burden and he had never been that way. He was such a caregiver, such a provider. He was the person who told me I could do anything.

As a young person, I wanted to play football because I was pretty athletic. He said, “Look, if you want to play football, play football.”

Did you play football?

No, because they would not let girls play football when I was in high school. I wanted to, so when I moved to Atlanta, I played in an intramural league. Our football team actually won.

You are a hundred pounds dripping wet…

Dripping wet, but fast as you can possibly imagine, and I can catch anything around me.

By just appearances, you would never assume your athleticism. People would say, “She is so feminine and pretty…”

Those people don’t know me either.

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You attended Georgia Southern?

I applied to one school and thank goodness I was accepted. I look at the SAT scores that are required today for admittance to any kind of public university and I think to myself, “Good Lord, thank you for letting me go to college more than three decades ago.” I loved Georgia Southern. It was a great experience. I was in a sorority, a little sister for a fraternity, loved all of my teachers, majored in political science. One quarter I was recognized as a standout in political science which allowed me to be with other majors and disciplines at Georgia Southern.

We were introduced to different industries and opportunities in the state of Georgia. I really took advantage of that opportunity and until today that quarter was the most interesting part of college.

What was the path that led you from Georgia to South Carolina?

Through Atlanta . . . After school, I moved to Atlanta, worked for Max Cleland in the secretary of state’s office, helping with incorporation filings. I was moved to the governor’s office under Zell Miller for planning and budget purposes and worked on different agency budgets and executive order implementation. I moved to Charleston in 1996.

Give me one takeaway required to be successful in politics in the south?

To understand that Democrats are not Democrats and Republicans are not Republicans. Politics in the south has people who are motivated to run for office because they want to help people. Regardless of what you see from a national level, in the south, politics is about helping people.

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Barbara with Senator Leatherman and his wife, Jean, at the opening of the Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in Charleston, South Carolina. Opposite: Barbara operates a rubber-tyred gantry (RTG) crane at Wando Welch Terminal in Charleston, South Carolina.

“. . . DON’T AVOID FINANCE, ACCOUNTING, OR BUSINESS . . .

HAVE SOME MAJOR OR MINOR THAT ALLOWS YOU TO HAVE A GOOD GRASP OF BUSINESS BECAUSE THE WORST FEELING YOU CAN HAVE IS BEING UNINFORMED.”

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ELYSIAN Publisher, Karen Floyd (left), interviews Barbara Melvin, president and CEO of South Carolina Ports, at the South Carolina Ports offices in Charleston.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DALTON ROOK BARBER

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Your first foray at the South Carolina Ports Authority was in what position?

Government relations. I think my first title was Government Affairs Liaison. I can only imagine what my parents thought, “What in the world is she doing? . . . affairs, liaisons, relations” I was grateful that they saw me move into operations so that they could tell people I wasn’t a piano player in a whorehouse, because it did not sound any worse than that did.

During your tenure at the Ports, the state transitioned from a Democrat leadership to Republican leadership. You have sustained friendships across the aisle throughout that timeframe, how did you accomplish that?

You have to be friends with everybody. I have always been lucky to represent a business with a “meat and potatoes issue.” I was never caught up in partisan politics because if you are representing a business like the port, that impacts people’s lives positively, not only from a job perspective, but just from generational opportunity, you bypass party lines and the issues that segregate our political party system.

You are approaching two and half decades at the South Carolina Ports Authority, the state’s largest economic engine. Of all the positions that you have held including service as CEO what was your favorite and why?

Operations, absolutely, operations. While there were many successes in the government and public relations field, our operations team here at the South Carolina Port is just second to none. The creativity and the love for what they do is what keeps me going every day, not to mention the overall positive impact we have on the state’s economy. Just two very different examples show this; like keeping the BMW plant open during the pandemic because our operations were so fluid. In contrast, making a significant investment in the underserved Dillon area, where one container of yams needs to get out of the port because of seasonality. You see, it is just as important to the yam farmer as the manufacturer to have a fluid and multipurposed port, both are our constituents.

In your formative years was there one person in particular that believed in you and changed your life trajectory?

I have watched strong leaders, who taught me two impactful lessons; celebrating victories and learning how to take bad news with grace. If you react the same way to the wi-fi going out as you do to an accident on the terminal, people will stop telling you things, and then it is too late. The caliber of the leadership in the Port’s board members like Chairman Bill Stern, who has served the port for so long, changed my life.

How many years has he been in service?

Bill easily served 15 years as chairman let alone a member of the board. He is selfless in the way he approaches the Port, as if it is his business. He gives as much time here as he gives to his family business, which means he is working 24 hours a day. And, when you own a family business you can never disengage.

What other influences impacted you or challenged you, to that degree?

The Liberty Fellowship Program gave me the confidence to be the type of leader that I genuinely am, rather than what somebody expected me to be. The former CEO Jim Newsome taught us service in this industry and how to view what our customers—Ocean Carriers want to see from a port. His background and experience are invaluable.

Did you have any idea you would land here?

The day I graduated, my dad looked at me and he said, “I am so proud of you. You graduated with honors . . . now, what in the world are you going to do with a political science degree?” And I said, “I don’t know dad, but I am not staying in Fort Valley.” “Outside of teaching,” he said, “I have no idea what you are going to be able to do.” I said, “I am moving to Atlanta to find out.” And so that was it.

Are you a risk taker?

Risk taker and I am a highflyer.

What a dichotomy. For almost 25 years you have worked for the same organization. How do you reconcile highflyer and that level of work consistency . . . two differing patterns of behavior?

I’m not sure . . . other than government relations is, in and of itself, full of risk. Even if it is the same job, it is not the same issue

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every year. If you are out of government relations for even six months, your relevance decreases dramatically because you are not in front of the legislators and therefore not bringing them relevant issues. The risk I took by going into operations and literally not knowing what might happen was pretty significant.

How was your new role, as CEO of the South Carolina Ports Authority, received by the political stakeholders in the state?

When the CEO announcement was made, the texts poured in from our current legislators, and those who had retired, legislators who had started their careers and advanced as governors, congressmen, senators. It was a shared sentiment that, “our little girl did good . . . our little girl graduated.” To the legislators that knew me well, they were proud and excited for me. It is amazing.

I repeatedly heard, “We knew you could do this,” or “You earned this.” To hear those words from someone like a Senator Leatherman, that I “earned” a position (because he earned everything he did) meant everything to me. I miss him, you know.

How did Senator Leatherman impact your career?

Senator Leatherman was a leader . . . and a leader will “lean in” and take a risk on someone that they think is going to have an impact,

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Barbara Melvin and her husband Michael while vacationing in the Bahamas.

beyond their years. He did that for me. I will continue to be grateful for his vision and trust and I will try to make him proud every day.

Is there a succession to Senator Leatherman in our current legislature’s leadership and vision for the Port?

Chairman Peeler has taken that role, has been that support for the state and for the Senate finance committee. He has been there the whole time and we are so lucky as a state to have the cohesiveness around the economic development policies. Sure. We have our differences, but around the things that matter . . . from jobs, business strategy, recruitment and foreign direct investment, there is a consistency that crosses party lines (Democrats and Republicans), as well as across the institutional aisles . . . whether house or senate. What is best for South Carolina is what bonds those serving in politics. The love for this state, whether you are from here or not, is infectious.

What number does the state of South Carolina’s Port Authority rank nationwide?

We happily are number eight in the country for container ports.

What was your path to assuming your current position as CEO? Jim Newsome, the past CEO, came to me when we realized that we were far behind on our harbor deepening project for the port.

He said he needed me to run the project which is typically run out of engineering. I did not know anything about a harbor deepening project

either. He told me that the technical knowledge was not the impediment, what was needed was “to move barriers.” In hindsight, I think he was crazy for giving the project, of that magnitude, to me. But he was correct, they had all the engineers they needed, but what they really lacked was somebody who could manage the project from “soup to nuts.” Not knowing anything about harbor deepening, we not only got the project done, but we also secured the funding. Both aspects of my professional training were utilized.

Later, Jim came to me and he said, “If you can do what you just did, you can do anything.” We talked about operations at that point. I could have easily messed up anywhere along the way.

But when the board sent me to get my EMBA in global supply chain, I knew they wanted me to learn the financial aspects of the CEO role. That was a strong hint.

You earned an Executive MBA from what institution?

University of Tennessee which was an intensive 13 months, with time abroad in China and Europe.

We spent time in Shanghai, and a province right outside of Shanghai and then Hamburg. I graduated with that degree and had a variety of classes. Besides strengthening my financial acumen, it allowed me to have meaningful conversations with my CFO, and not be lost. The experience taught me how to bring together the C-suite, because silos are horrible. They exist, but you have to make them go away to have a successful organization.

How often do you put work boots on?

More than once a week.

The Port of Charleston is robust and complex. Share with the reader the Port’s reach and impact.

We have an amazing footprint for a state of our size. We have three container terminals in Charleston. We have a sophisticated breakbulk “roll on, roll off” terminal. We have a cruise terminal, two inland ports and then we have a port in Georgetown, which is struggling because it was the victim of a cargo shift to bulk. Historically the terminal used to handle containerized cargo.

Let’s talk about the two inland ports starting first with Dillon.

Dillon is our newest baby, growing up well and holding its own.

It is on the CSX line. The lead client is Harbor Freight Tools, an importer which has about 3 million square feet under roof in Dillon, South Carolina. When we were planning this expansion, we called the project Pedro. Amazingly, nobody figured it out we were putting an investment in Dillon where the focus is on bettering Harbor Freight’s life. Being a major importer allows us to have a lot of empty boxes. That area is a rich area for exporters, whether that be the border in North Carolina or the farming area or frozen chicken, ham, things of that nature that are in the area as well.

Dillon had every “ingredient” for that location decision to be extremely successful. It was surrounded by land, so we were not having to hem ourselves in between big companies that were already in existence. I look upon that as one of the most significant things we could have done for an area of the state that was starving for additional economic development. When you look at the decision for locating

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an inland Port financially, though it is not our blue-ribbon winner, we make decisions that are propped up by other areas of our business.

Because of the statewide impact, the economic development in that area, and the movement of freight, it is a sound decision.

And the second inland port?

The inland port in Greer on the Norfolk Southern line was born out of the need for creative alternatives to moving significant amounts of automotive freight by motor carrier. What we were able to do was take a rail line and basically turn it into an overnight service and make it competitive with trucks. The volume that we were able to generate was beyond our wildest dreams. What was originally going to be similar to Dillon and be import dominated, is now an export dominated facility with more than 160,000 rail lifts in one year. I would dare say it is probably the most successful inland port, definitely on the east coast and probably not rivaled in the country.

These inland ports are so important you have to think of them as the closest valet lot at an airport. The parking there is so valuable.

Inland ports give us relief valves and a way for people to utilize the space that they need for containers, storage in different areas on rail lines. Trucks still have to drive to get your container from there, but they are driving much less distance. I think the concept of inland ports is catching like wildfire. We see competitive ports investing in inland ports, since we did. I still think we have the best.

What is the economic impact of the South Carolina Ports Authority?

The most important metric we share is that we are responsible for one in 10 jobs directly or indirectly. Everybody from the person who works directly for us in Dillon, to the person who’s working with Harbor Freight. These jobs are important, and having a port is so important for the attraction of foreign direct investment or in manufacturing, advanced manufacturing or now retail.

E-commerce, and the way we buy things as consumers has allowed us to get into a game that we weren’t in before, because we just weren’t a high population state. I think the impact that we have is tremendous.

Most people think our impact is mainly in the Charleston area, but if you look at our impact it is split among four regions. Our greatest impact is in the upstate inland port with more than 50%.

Who would you see as our top competitor?

We are in a gas war daily with the Georgia Ports Authority. They are a tremendous port and are well run. We are unique in that South Carolina and Georgia are operating ports. When we need to do something, we can do it. We are in the fastest growing region of the country and we fight for every bit of cargo. But the great news is there is enough cargo for both of us. Both ports will be successful.

Has the Port experienced supply chain challenges?

Wow. Supply chain issues. During the pandemic, the US consumer was on a spending spree and import demand grew by about 20%.

Port capacity is extremely rigid, and you can’t sneak a new port in overnight. Consumers just kept buying. They looked at their Zoom calls and thought, my sofa looks horrible. And boy, I need a piece of artwork behind me because I can’t leave my house. Why not do some improvements in our backyard to make our escape. Purchases were made and orders kept coming. Import demand around the world did not grow anywhere near what it did in the United States. The issues that were simmering under the surface pre-pandemic really just had an accelerant of the pandemic thrown on them. And they became evident.

We do not have enough distribution center space. We have for decades talked about how we can better attract drivers into the motor carrier industry. We don’t have enough chassis. (For people who don’t know what a chassis is, it is the box a container sits on). When you don’t have enough of those or you can’t unload the box that is at the warehouse, then you are tying up a chassis, a box and warehouse space. And if you don’t have a driver to get it there . . .

Our industry really saw tremendous backup on the west coast.

We didn’t experience the bottle neck until after the Thanksgiving

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holidays. We have been in the throes of supply chain issues ever since.

We had never experienced a vessel queue here before the pandemic.

We don’t know how to not be the most productive port. We are experiencing that every day now.

Is there an apex to this?

I think we have hit it. We have had a high of more than 30 ships in our vessel queue. We are down now, but it will take time to absorb all of the inventory. We don’t have enough warehouses to get inventory out to stores by the motor carriers that we still need to attract.

What is the biggest hurdle or concern?

We must do a better job as an industry of attracting motor carriers.

Not only from the recruitment side, but how they are treated. It is amazing to me that in this country, we bake cupcakes for the Amazon driver, but we hate to see a truck beside us on an interstate. I can promise you that package was not born in the back of the Amazon van. It got there from a motor carrier. Our biggest challenge in this country is to attract talented people to the workforce.

What is next?

Six years ago, the state invested $3 billion, spanning through 2033.

In front of our general assembly now, is a dual served intermodal rail facility and a barge. Again, another creative alternative to only moving things by truck.

And that’s anticipated to pass this legislative session?

We’re very hopeful and if it does, we will have that facility open and the barge opportunity available by 2025.

How challenging is the relationship between the state’s largest economic driver, tourism, cruise ships and the environment?

Having diversity in our market segments is crucial. While we are dominated by containers, South Carolina has such a variety of offerings that we, as a port, need to be responsive, with whatever our state is focusing on. Whether the cruise portion is popular, not popular, does not matter because cruises are popular with the people that take them, and you can operate the terminals in a responsible way. Our break bulk area, which is really automotive in South Carolina, swings well above our weight and as a matter of fact, ranks number one in the automotive industry. Whether that is a finished vehicle or rubber for tires or wire rod for the tire mechanisms, we have to be able to support those industries that have made capital investments in South Carolina.

Do you make a strong effort to build relationships with the different heads of each of the organizations? And what percent of your time is spent doing so?

Absolutely. I would say I probably spend 50% of my time relationship nurturing and building and then 50% of my focus is truly dedicated to operations. I rely a lot on the team. They come to me when they can’t solve something or really need additional approval, but not for everything. The team is quite independent and highly skilled.

Is your strength, problem solving, nurturing or organization building?

Problem solving probably first. And then the close second would be between nurturing and relationship building. Because I don’t see those as very different.

I want to explore the personal Barbara Melvin. When you first saw your husband, did you know he would be your husband, someone to go through life with?

I did. I was divorced at 27 and declared I would never get married again. I was by myself for a long time. We had known each other but timing never was right…either I was dating somebody, or he was dating somebody. At a fundraiser, as a matter of fact for Glenn McConnell, we reconnected. That was it.

Was it physical or mental… and what in particular is it about him . . . ?

Mental. He’s quiet. He does not get caught up in “competing with the Joneses,” so to speak. He is a hard worker and is as dedicated as I am. There is no amount of laziness and nothing superficial about him. He is a mechanic and can fix anything.

Do you tell him about what goes on at work?

No, I don’t have to. I think he hears it from a lot of truck drivers that he sees in and out on a daily basis. He probably knows a lot more

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Ship-to-shore cranes at Hugh K. Leatherman Terminal in Charleston Harbor load and unload the Hapag-Lloyd container ship Delaware Express.

PHOTOGRAPH BY DANIEL WRIGHT98 / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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than what he lets on because there are some days when I come home, and he will have poured me a glass of wine or fixed me a drink. He doesn’t even ask because he probably read something on Twitter, or someone came by the shop and said something. He has hobbies outside of me. It wouldn’t work if I was his hobby because I have too much other going on. If I was his hobby, our marriage would fail. He doesn’t wait on me to do things or make the decisions for me because he knows I make 5,000 decisions in a day.

What’s your favorite thing to do together?

We go down to the Florida Keys and we spend time on the water and relax and raise our dogs. We share that well.

You do not have children. Is that a decision that you believe women in the professional world must make?

Sometimes the decision is made for you. I admire mothers. I truly do not know how they do it. When my bio or CV is read for introduction purposes, people will say, “I don’t know how you do all this.” But I don’t know how moms do it. I could not get myself up and going in the morning if I had kids with me . . . I am just not that organized.

Has the ability to stay singularly focused on your professional career and a personal wellbeing been critical to your success?

I think it was helpful career-wise, but I don’t think that it is the differentiator either. There are so many successful women, more successful than me by far, who have children and who have done it well. I think it is a personal decision, the plan you make for your life. Once you have clarity, you make it happen.

Did you ever want kids Barb?

No, I didn’t even like babysitting. I am the type of person you go to in a crisis or an emergency because I do not get wrapped up in the emotional. I genuinely do care though.

I am curious about what drives you?

We have close to 900 employees now. I mother them because I want to take care of them. People who are happy and taken care of, produce to their highest level. One of the nicknames that I have here is Mama B. Among many, by the way, most not derogatory. I really care. The thing that drives me most crazy about people is, if your potential is at a “C” level, if you give me that “C” every day, I am so happy. But if your potential is an “A” and you give me a “C,” I am so disappointed. Not everybody has to perform at the highest level. I just want our employees to perform at the highest level they are individually capable of.

You hold yourself to that standard?

Absolutely.

From a personal “well-being,” how much sleep and exercise do you need?

If I get six and a half hours of sleep, I feel great. I exercise about two hours daily. I would do two hours of cardio every day, but I know that’s not good for my body. I force myself to cross train and I do weights once a week.

I know you are a runner but what other exercise regimen do you have and how do you feel post workout?

I love kickboxing. I do that twice a week for an hour. When I am done, I am dripping sweat and cannot imagine the next aggressive move I want to make.

How important is loyalty? On a scale of one to 10.

Nine. Decisiveness would be the only thing I would rank higher with a 10. Decisiveness is just more important here. I need the loyalty of a container handler to be, to safety, not to me. So that safety decision or decisiveness, I would rank a little bit higher than loyalty.

What does retirement look like for you . . . and do you anticipate retiring at the South Carolina Ports Authority?

Yes, I will. In April 2023 I will have been here 25 years. We have a strong team. I think it’s part of my job to make room for them to be able to grow. I pray every day for the grace to know when to leave rather than people sitting around saying, “Gosh, I wish she would go.” I pray for that grace all the time.

What’s the average age of a retiree?

I presume that would be older than when I will leave. I would say

age 65 is the average, but not for me. I want to go enjoy life for a while. Will I fully retire? Probably not. I have had the benefit of developing a variety of skills that I might utilize later, and I will always be involved in the community no matter what community, whether I split time between two communities or whatever, I’ll always be involved, because I think you should give back. I have been fortunate, so I expect myself to give back a lot as well. While I have no plan for retirement, I will grow people to make sure that a plan is ready when the time comes.

Looking into the future, could anyone in leadership today step into the role?

Absolutely. The talent pool at this place is unbelievable.

What does the average workday look like for you?

I am up and monitoring when our gates open, right now that is three o’clock am. I exercise between four and six, take a quick shower and am usually in the office before seven am. I am here until the gates close, and sometimes later. I monitor emails, and twenty-four/seven people have my cell phone. The buck stops with me on operational issues which is why people that need it, have my cell phone. The only thing that stays on at night is the cell phone ringer. I always tell people, you have to call my phone if it is an emergency, because I don’t hear the text.

What do you want to be remembered for?

The greatest thing that I could be remembered for would be leading people, giving them the air cover that they needed to be the best leader that they, in turn, can be. I want the port to keep growing and climbing up that top 10 list, and at the same time, building it responsibly. I want to spread word around our state about the positive impact we have made. I hope to be known, not as this dominant person, but as a collaborator who realizes that “you cannot let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

Do you say that to yourself a lot?

All the time.

You ascended largely because of your quest for excellence, and perfection.

I have to stop myself a lot.

Where do you find peace?

On the ocean. On my run. Most of the time by myself. I get peace when I am not holding a cellphone. When I have time to think.

How much alone time do you need a day?

I don’t need a lot. I practice yoga and that keeps me going if I can just do it once a week.

Do you have “chatter” or are you able to micro focus?

I can tune it out. I can listen to the chatter and pick up the two minutes of the hour that they taught, that really mattered. And then I put it back to them and say, “You could have said this in two minutes.”

What piece of advice can you give a younger woman that would have changed your life, something that was pivotal, that you wish you would have been told.

I wish I had taken business classes, not at the age 48. I would say don’t avoid finance, accounting business, or learning good business practices. Have some major or minor that allows you to have a good grasp of business because the worst feeling you can have is being uninformed.

That is great professional advice and I completely agree . . . but what personal words of wisdom?

People think I am fearless, but there was a pivotal moment in my life that I knew something was not right and I was too scared to speak up. I fixed it within a year. So, I would say, don’t get too caught up in the “ceremony” or let society tell you what you are supposed to be doing. Always stay centered around your gut feeling.

Are you fear based?

Not a bit. God bless. I wish I was. Probably a lot of people wish I was.

When all is said and done, what do you want the world to know about you?

That I gave it everything I had. I left nothing on the table. ■

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Aerial view of the Port of Charleston, a seaport managed by the South Carolina Ports Authority (SPCA), in Charleston, South Carolina.

PHOTOGRAPH BY EQROY / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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Jan photographed at her home in St. Helena California.

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jan Interview Date: January 11, 2022

JANICE HANSEN ZAKIN is a physician and co-proprietor of Zakin

Family Vineyards in St. Helena, California. Raised in Hawaii, she received her medical degree from the University of Hawaii, completed her residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology, and ran a successful private practice on the islands of Oahu and Lanai until 1999, when she and her husband, Jon Zakin, opened a new chapter in their lives.

“The 150-acres we purchased in Napa was the perfect blank canvas for us to build a home,” Jan Zakin reflected. As the project unfolded, “We decided to set aside an initial four-acres and plant our own private vineyard. The land had never been planted.”Their vision would eventually yield one of the most unique wineries in Napa.

Janice has served on the boards of Hawaii’s Sex Abuse and Treatment Center; EngenderHealth; American Red Cross; California College of the Arts; UNICEF; and San Francisco Ballet. She maintains a medical practice at the San Francisco Free Clinic and is Medical Advisor for the hair products company, Madison Reed. She consults for NASA, where she is an active member of the HIRRB and IFIOC boards.

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What is the origin of the Hansen name?

Hansen is the third most common surname in Denmark after Nielsen and Jensen. My father was a Danish immigrant and came to Canada when he was 15. The Germans were invading Denmark, and he fled lying about his age. He worked on a merchant ship, then jumped ship in Seattle and ended up in Vancouver.

Once in Canada, what did he do?

He was a “hell driver,” which is someone that performs daredevil stunts with cars. He would drive through fiery hoops and do other car stunts for spectators. He did that until he became a used car salesman. We really were very poor.

Was your mother also Danish?

No. She was second generation Norwegian, but also from Canada.

When she met my dad, she was a cigarette girl at the Vancouver Hotel. They were married and had two children, my sister and me.

Did they remain married?

No, they divorced when I was in the sixth grade. My mother remarried a military man.

At age six, you moved from Canada to Hawaii? Why? It was February, and the Canadian weather was awful for the used car business because the salesmen worked outdoors. A good friend of my father’s was working in Hawaii on a car lot and had a job for him. It all seemed very exotic. I remember flying on Pan Am with the four props. It was a long flight, like nine to eleven hours, but it felt so short, and I never wanted to get off the plane.

It was very exciting, and as we got off the airplane, you could smell the flowers. The hula girls greeted us.

Did you know that your parents would divorce?

Yes, they were fighting all the time, and it was obviously the best thing for both.

And your sister?

She is younger and is still living in Hawaii. She is a minister and has a wedding business where she performs marriages.

Was religion a big part of your formative years?

No, my parents would drop us off at Sunday school and then return home and go back to bed. I was raised Lutheran. My sister was “born again” in her early twenties. My father, after the used car business, started a wedding company that she took over after he died.

That is a bit of the paradox.

My father used to say, “When I was in the used car business, they used to call me your mother—and now they call me father.”

That is pretty funny.

Yes, it is pretty funny. He was a complete atheist. That marriage business was kind of a scam.

You were in sixth grade, and your parents divorced. Did your mother remain in Hawaii?

She did. She became a beautician and began a wig business. I remember having styrofoam heads, hair dryers, curlers and wigs everywhere. She would style wigs for the generals’ wives. She worked so hard to support my sister and me. She passed away four years ago at the age of 94.

Did she see you realize your dream of becoming a doctor?

She did. I was a nurse first, then I became a doctor. While she was always so supportive, my father was not.

You and your sister have a four-year age gap. How is that relationship today?

We were very different growing up. I was incredibly motivated to get an education. She was a singer, left school and went to Las Vegas when she was 15 years old. She had her 3 children before she was twenty and was married to a golf pro living in California.

At that time, I was not interested in children, and we really had nothing in common. Once I had my own children, we became closer and when we were taking care of my mother, together, we became really close and remain very close to this day. It is really lovely. My mother was never placed outside our homes. We were committed to taking care of her. She spent half her time with me and then the other half with my sister.

The circle of life. What motivated you to excel academically?

I do not know where my drive came from . . . only that high school academics came easily for me. I did not have any mentors, but if I had, I probably would have gone straight from college to medical school. I simply did not know any better. I wanted to be a vet at that time. This was a long time ago, and my high school counselor told me that “women aren’t vets, they are nurses or teachers.” I thought, “Okay, I will be a nurse.” After two years of training, I became a registered nurse at age 19 and was placed on an intermediate care floor with tremendous responsibility. I was overwhelmed, and just did not enjoy it. I thought about going back to school to become a psychologist. I met an anesthetist who asked me if I ever thought of becoming a nurse anesthetist? I took another two-year program and entered this very high-level, highfunctioning job, delivering anesthesia. I realized then that maybe I could become a doctor. I started taking night classes.

Was there one person that encouraged you to take the next step?

Mr. Henry, a big Hawaiian jolly guy, encouraged me after the final exam of my first college biology class. I had gone through the index to prepare, so I knew every single item on the exam as well as earning the twenty extra credit points. I made a 120, basically. He said, “you really can do this, you know.”

Q Opposite: Jan’s mother Olive with her father Max, sister Karen, age two, and sixyear-old Jan, just shortly after arriving to the Honolulu Airport in1960.

THERE IS A JOY ABOUT YOU . . . WHERE DOES THAT COME FROM?

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. . . A LOT OF PEOPLE SAID HOW COULD YOU GO BACK THERE AFTER THAT FIRE? HOW COULD WE NOT BE HERE? THIS IS WHERE WE MET, WE RAISED OUR KIDS AND GROW OUR WINE.

Is that the first time anyone encouraged you?

Yes. The first time anybody had ever told me that being a doctor was attainable and possibly was in my future. I realized at that point; I can do this. I was not the smartest, clearly, in my medical school class, but nobody worked harder than I did. Everybody else had a lot more fun. I was always studying late at night. I ended up graduating Alpha Omega Alpha, the top 10%, which was great.

The nursing and anesthesia background helped me develop good clinical skills. I attended the University of Hawaii medical school, which was not strong on research but very strong clinically. It was the perfect program for me and changed my life.

How old were you when you graduated from medical school?

I was 31 when I graduated from medical school and 35 when I completed my residency.

Was that considered an average age?

No, I was older than the other medical students.

Did age benefit you?

Yes, because of my work-related experiences. I knew what a sick person looked like, and I was not afraid to be in the hospital. The academic part was more challenging because I went back to school and took only the minimum course load that I needed to get in. That first year of medical school was very hard because I did not have a degree in biochemistry; I had just taken one class in biochemistry. It was tough that first year. But once we got into the clinics, I felt very comfortable.

You put yourself “financially” through medical school. How did you do that?

I went to University of Hawaii because the tuition was $5,000 compared to that of George Washington and Georgetown which were $22,000. I took out student loans, and I had saved some money from my modeling days and my earlier nursing careers. I got through it.

Tell me about your modeling days.

It is interesting that my father would spend money on Patricia Stevens Modeling and Finishing School, but he would not send me to an academic private school. He was so proud of me modeling.

I secured a White Stag ad which was carried by major magazines like Seventeen and Glamour. But the modeling was at a very low level and mostly local. The experience helped to motivate me because I was not a great model. I realized that I needed to have something of substance to support myself. I needed to get an education.

Jan at home in Hawaii with her daughters Christina, age six, and Tatiana, age 14 months, on May Day in 2001.

You are very athletic now. Did you always run? Did you always eat well?

Did you always really take care of yourself ?

No, I was never on any sports teams. I was motivated when I was living in Hawaii. I remember waking up while it was still dark, and I felt this energy in the air. I looked down from my apartment building, and it was the start of the Honolulu marathon. There was all this energy along the street. A cardiologist named Jack Scaff had a marathon clinic in the park.

I went to the first meeting with my Bob Wolf super pros. He said, “You can run around Diamond Head.” It was so empowering to be able to run. Within about a year, I ran my first marathon on the Big Island. I finished in about five and a half hours. It was so empowering to realize, as a woman, you could be so strong, and you could accomplish goals you had defined.

That was when you were in medical school?

No, that was when I was a nurse.

When did you become an obstetrician?

After four years of med school and then four years of residency. When I went to med school, I went with the intention of becoming a child psychiatrist. I think part of that was because as a nurse anesthetist, you do not talk to your patients, and I am a very social person. I really missed that interaction.

When I first rotated through psych, I realized it was not for me.

I never considered being an obstetrician, with motherhood and babies. But I just loved it. On my first day, I delivered a baby, and it was so much fun. I loved being a surgeon. There is also a lot of psych involved, and you can help a lot of people if you are compassionate and willing to sit and listen. It turned out to be the perfect specialty for me.

You talk a lot about work ethic. Do you work as hard today as you did then?

I think I work harder.

And why is that?

I love what I do. Even with this wine business, it is not that I gave up medicine, I just augmented my work responsibilities and added to it. I love my life, and I love what I am doing.

You were 33 years old in 1990 and finally an OBGYN. Any love interests?

Yes, the father of my three children at that time was a plastic surgeon. We raised these beautiful kids and had a wonderful life in Hawaii. One of the reasons I ended up staying for residency was because he had just started a practice there. So, going off to do a residency elsewhere was not an option. Like so many women at that time, making choices in life were based on their husbands’ careers. The marriage did not work out.

Do you communicate with him today?

Yes, mostly surrounding the kids.

Your divorce was finalized in 1998, and then 1999 comes along. How did you meet your husband?

I was here in California, on business, giving lectures on a low dose birth control pill. I was a single mother of three young children, my youngest daughter was two. I was visiting a friend who owned the property which now belongs to Cakebread Wines.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN ZAKIN

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He introduced me to Jon who was from Chicago and had purchased the property and spent his first night there. At that time the road was dirt and they had a meeting to discuss paving it. He wanted to talk to Jon about the road, so we met underneath that oak tree there (pointing). A gestational theme here, right? We were married nine months later. We had our daughter on the very day of our first anniversary together. It was my fourth, but his first child.

What a beautiful story.

It has all been so magical. As if it is all meant to be.

Do you believe in love at first sight?

Totally. Oh my God. You knew when you met Jon, he was the “one”?

I did not know, but he knew. He told me he was a screenwriter.

Back then, you could not Google anybody. When he mentioned later that “he was in US Robotics,” I thought it was a toy company.

He sent me the screenplay, and he asked me to review it. He said he wanted to see a birth/delivery. I was reading the screen play, and I thought, “Well, is this protagonist him?” We started chatting over the phone over the next few weeks, and then he came to Hawaii.

I was not sure if he wanted to take me out or if he wanted to see a delivery. We went to the best restaurant, La Mer, overlooking the ocean, and he ordered an extraordinary wine. I said, “I can’t drink that wine and take call” to which he responded, “Well, just sign out.” He asked me to marry him the next day. I met his mother six weeks later and we married nine months later.

What is it about him?

He is just the smartest man I ever met. He made a lot of money at US Robotics but wears Gap pants. He is just the kindest person to his family.

My ex was 15 years older. It was nice dating somebody my own age.

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You had your last daughter Tatiana at age 46. I want to hear that story.

I had three children, Ryan, Tom and Christina, two boys and a girl, satarting at age 34. I had no trouble getting pregnant with the first three. When Jon and I met, I was older, but we wanted to have a child together. I miscarried early in our first pregnancy at three weeks, and I started thinking that my eggs were too old. He was horribly negative.

He said, “You are way too old to conceive and will need an egg donor.

It is a waste of your time.” He talked me into a cycle of IVF. When they drew my blood, to my surprise, I learned I was already pregnant, and I did not even know it. “You don’t get credit for this one,” I thought.

Our daughter was born at full term and healthy. There is a one in six chance children born from women at my age will have a chromosome abnormality. We were so lucky to have such a beautiful girl.

You were a partner at the doctor’s group Straub, before you met Jon. One day you walked in after a lecture in California and said, “I met this man, and I’m moving to a vineyard in California.” How did that go?

That was a real challenge. I was madly in love, and it was terribly exciting. I had never lived on the US mainland, and this move was disrupting everything. I had every intention of setting up another practice as soon as I got here because that is who I am.

I am a doctor, but then I became pregnant and thought I cannot do all this at 46 and start a practice. I will wait. After a year of not taking an OB call, it really was hard to go back. Taking call is physically brutal. It’s tough. You do not realize it when you’re doing it. I still wanted to work, so I started practicing gynecology in a free clinic, so that I was not taking call.

What do you do at the free clinic?

I am their GYN consultant, and I have been there 20 years. It is such a beautiful place. It was started by two family practice physicians

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Zakin Vineyards at 1,250 feet above the Napa Valley, just after harvest.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN ZAKIN

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that went to Yale where they met. He was a ballet dancer, and she a downhill skier. They went to her father and said, “We want to start a clinic for the uninsured, not for the indigent, but the unfilled gap that cannot afford health insurance.” Her father, Warren Hellman, thought it was the stupidest idea that he had ever heard. But he put this together, and we have celebrated their 25th year. We see beautiful patients that fall into the category of “working poor.” They are so grateful.

What’s the criteria for the Free Clinic?

The only criteria for being seen is having no health insurance. We do not check, and because we do not bill for insurance, we avoid the whole hassle of doing that. We raise most of our money at a luncheon once a year in San Francisco. After Warren died, we thought funding would stop because the supporters were all his business friends.

Fortunately, funders are still supporting the clinic. With COVID, over the last two years, the fundraising has been virtual. People continue supporting The San Francisco Free Clinic, today.

Do you drive to San Francisco? That is quite a hike, about an hour and a half?

Yes, I usually allow two hours.

Do you spend the night?

No, I was in clinic yesterday. I go as much as they need me.

They just schedule around my availability, which is a great thing when you are working for free. Sometimes I go three times a month, sometimes once a month. I try to work longer hours, so I can see as many as ten patients in a day.

Would you ever give that up?

No I love it. It’s hard to find a gynecologist who will work for free. Also, if I do not show up, they don’t get seen. If I am gone for a while and come back and I find a cervical cancer, I think, “Oh God, if I had been here last week, maybe, I could have improved her outcome.” I would never give that up.

Who designed this home?

This home was designed by Stanley Saitowitz, a South African architect who teaches at Berkeley. I looked at another one of his houses, which was nothing like this. I really liked his style but was nervous about modern architecture. I was afraid it would feel cold, but I realize now modern architecture is not how it looks but how it makes you feel. When you are inside and here, it is about your relationship to the outside. Now, I could never live in a Tuscan farmhouse, and there is not a day that goes by that I don’t look at this place and think this is such a work of art.

It is a work of art.

He is brilliant, and his architecture is mathematically precise. Here everything is on a five-point grid. These planks are twenty by five. Even the floor panels are five inches…everything is on a five. There are no four foot or six-foot walls anywhere. So, when you look at the structure, it is appealing mathematically, and there is symmetry to everything Walls of glass everywhere…You had to completely rebuild though?

Yes, from the fire. Jon broke his hip two days before and awoke to take a pain pill. He looked out the window, and the entire ridge was on fire. There was no smoke in the house so no smoke alarm that went off. I ran to the car in my underwear and barefoot and grabbed the dogs. Jon managed to get his shoes, his pants, his walker, his cell phone, and his computer. We drove down the hill in pitch black at four in the morning. I can remain calm under pressure and in chaos because of training and working in the operating room. But I was not calm. I was freaking out. I thought we were going to die. Thank God it was just the two of us here. Anyway, we got halfway down the mountain, and I thought we are home free. Then, we took a turn, and there were spots of fires everywhere. The fire had spread so quickly that we were driving into it. There was pitch-black smoke, and you would not be able to see anything for just a moment, then it would clear up and you were able to see clearly. Every time we made a turn, the flames were getting higher.

Our neighbor was following his wife’s car that had hit a tree. Her car had caught on fire and was blocking our exit. We could not get past it.

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His truck had the lights on, and the keys were still in the ignition. The truck door was open, and it was still running, so obviously he ran. I jumped out of our car and into his truck. I thought what am I going to do? Push her burning car out of the way? It was impossible, so we just started yelling for help. The fire department rescued us by cutting a hole through a fence. It was just terrifying, the noise, flames, heat and the smoke. They had those wire cutters, and it was like a slow-motion movie. After Jon and I got through the fence, I realized, “Oh my God, where are my dogs?” They must have bolted when I opened the door. I still get upset thinking about it. I called for them over and over, but they were not there. The firemen looked in the car, but they were not there either They reassured me and said, “Animals know what to do. We will find them later.” Animal Control found Winston four hours later, not even dirty, completely unscathed having had the best day of his whole life, just entertaining everybody. But my Vizsla must have tried to find me, I think. She was severely burned, her paws to the bone. She passed away that night. It was harrowing, but that experience put everything in perspective. We were so fortunate, and I never really felt more grateful for surviving.

What year was this?

2020. It took me a while to return here because I was freaked out. Interestingly, the house was still standing, but nothing worked. The tracks for all the glass door openings were completely melted, but the glass was there, and the house looked fine. The wells, the pump house, the water treatment, the HVAC, everything that makes this house function was vaporized. All the landscaping burned, as well. Where we once had Cypress trees, everything was gone. The vineyards on three sides saved the house because they are a natural fire break. We were out of the house for over a year due to repairs. We just moved back in this past Thanksgiving.

Did it smell like fire?

There was a tremendous amount of soot inside the house because we left the doors and the windows open. We just fled. There was smoke damage, and the electrical system was burned out and had to be rewired.

You are co-proprietor and part owner of Zakin winery. Tell me how that came about?

Jon bought the property in 1998, we married in 1999, then planted in 2002, and did not release any wine until 2016 when we released our 2013. We had a group working for us when we first launched giving us this amazing start. I realized that the wine business is fun, especially the hospitality component where you meet like-minded people that enjoy wine and food. I have been given this amazing opportunity to meet people that I would never have met before. I have made so many wonderful friends. Our informal tagline is, “You come as a customer and leave as a friend.”

You have wine tastings everywhere. Does Jon attend?

It is pretty much me, but he’ll make a cameo appearance. He does not enjoy it as much as I do. I have been traveling a lot with wine dinners for my customers across the country. While I enjoy an opportunity to meet new people, go to a party or do something like that, he would much rather stay home and watch football.

What skills do you and your individual “teammates” bring to the table?

Jon is my “prince.” He is brilliant with strategy and business. He is our planner, also the IT department, and occasionally the “delivery slave.” Philippe Melka is our winemaker. He and his Alterier Melka team are extraordinarily talented. He has several projects but is able to create different styles of wine, per project. He takes the best from the land, that essence, and makes that shine. We wanted to create a “Napa Bordeaux-ish” experience in your mouth. He really

Jan pruning Cabernet Sauvignon in the early spring of 2022.

PHOTOGRAPH BY JONATHAN ZAKIN

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Jan and Winston, her Brittney Spaniel, enjoying life.

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understood what we were trying to do, and the result is a different style than other wines in the valley. He does this with his Atelier Melka team farmed by Pete Richmond at Silverado Farming and made at Basswood. I do the day-to-day management of the business and the hospitality I love so much. Tatiana is becoming more and more interested. It is our team and location that differentiate our wines, not any individual’s effort.

There is a joy about you . . . where does that come from?

I feel gratitude and joy.

Did you always have it?

Not like this. I have always been a positive person. But the fire was a real-life changing experience. For us, having gone through that together, brought us so much closer. A lot of good things happened with a really bad event. I really appreciate being up here too. A lot of people said, “How could you possibly go back up there after that fire?” How could I not be here? This is where we met, where our wines grow and where we raised our kids.

It is magical.

Really magical. Yes. Do you believe in God? And if you get to ask him any question, what would that be?

Yes, I believe in God. Because I am a doctor, I would ask him, “Why do people have to suffer?”

What is it that you want to achieve here forward?

Here forward, I will continue to help people. I would also like to improve our wine every year and solidify the relationships I have with our friends and customers. And have fun! I think my life is on a perfect trajectory and can’t think of anything I would do differently at this point. I just want to continue to do more of the same.

If you could do one thing over, what would it have been?

I would have liked to work internationally. I have a passion for women’s health in third world countries.

Like “Doctors Without Borders”?

Yes. I thought I was still going to do it, but now with COVID, who knows what will happen. To work internationally and to help women that nobody else is willing to help is something I

am passionate about. There are double standards in women’s healthcare, based upon being born with and without privilege.

You served on NASA’s (Institutional Review Board) as well?

Yes. When I originally moved here, I thought I would set up a medical practice but then I became pregnant. One of the women who was in the residency program with me introduced me to an astronaut, Yvonne Cagel, a physician, PhD, flight surgeon, boots on the ground soldier in the Middle East and fighter pilot. She worked at the Ames Research Center in Cupertino, and they needed a medical monitor for their 20G centrifuge studies. I loved the idea of hanging out with rocket scientists, so I accepted. They would spin people to reproduce the downward effects of gravity. The effect of the spinning can cause the blood to pool in the periphery which can then cause fainting. They needed a doctor to assess the person before fainting. It was an interesting project.

Any research, since the Nuremberg trials, requires an IRB— Institutional Review Board. NASA had a board seat vacancy, and I fit all the boxes. They wanted a physician, diversity, and a nonemployee. The board was comprised of mostly white men and being a woman checked that box. If I had been of color, it would have been even better. They were seeking a non-NASA employee because they wanted different perspectives. I was invited to join the NASA IRB. Ralph Pelligra, the chief medical officer at NASA and dear friend, along with another colleague, designed and developed a non-inflatable anti-shock garment comprised largely of neoprene and Velcro. His anti-shock garment called Zoex (later renamed to NASG) was revolutionary, inexpensive to produce, and had no chance of over inflation. When placed on a person, it keeps the blood from pooling, much like panty hose. You can spin people longer with the garment on and study them longer. When I saw it, I thought this would be amazing for all the women who will die of postpartum hemorrhage in the developing countries. Most of the time they die because they cannot get to a medical center in time. You could stabilize a birth mother with this garment (that costs a hundred dollars and can be washed hundreds of times), put them on the back of a bike and get them to a center. I would love to take credit for what was accomplished, but I went to UCSF with Ralph’s blessing and made the introduction to Sue Ellen Miller, who picked it up. We presented Zoex together in Delhi at the Maternal Morbidity conference. It was called the third, most promising reduction in maternal morbidity. It was a huge deal, helping to reduce maternal morbidity in thirty-three developing countries. They eventually received a MacArthur grant, and the product is now scaled.

From your work at NASA to board service at Engender Health, you are passionate about women’s health in third world countries.

These are our sisters. How can we forget about these women?

Their lives are predetermined because of where they were born.

A twist of fate.

It is a twist of fate.

Give me one piece of advice that has withstood your entire life, that maybe if someone would have told you, it could have helped you.

Hands down, get an education and never, ever, ever stop learning. I read articles in order to be re-certified, take classes at Davis on wine making. I just never stop learning because for me, having that opportunity to get an education changed my life. I am grateful that someone believed in me, accepted me and had faith that I could do this. ■

Jan and husband, Jon, at their home in St Helena.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY MICHAEL PANICCIA

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NFTs & the transformation of Art

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VSKA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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rt collecting is almost as old as civilization itself. From the ancient times of the Egyptians and Greeks, through the Renaissance, the Age of Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, objets d’art have morphed from a means for collectors to tell stories and to display one’s wealth, to becoming a powerful way to capture moments in time and to express one’s personality and tastes.

Art objects themselves have also changed with the times— iterations have included burial objects encrusted with jewels, commissioned paintings, photographs, and mixed media objects. In recent times, art has become less about aesthetics and more about cultural meaning and creative expression.

However, according to Sotheby’s, it was only recently, “in the 1960s, that the idea of ‘art as an investment took hold and prospered into the $64 billion art market of today.’” That was the era when investors began to see art as more than

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People don’t understand NFTs, Metaverse, and crypto today the same way they didn’t understand online shopping in 1995.”

—ANUJ JASANI

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just something to display and began to realize the financial benefits of buying and selling creative works.

ver the next few decades, the art market exploded, with collectors spending staggering amounts of money for Impressionist art, Van Goghs, and more edgy, contemporary pieces. And, according to Sotheby’s, technology played a large part in driving those sales, as disrupters such as eBay changed the way art was bought and sold, and the Artnet website made information and research about art available to the masses and allowed collectors to participate in online auctions and to visit virtual galleries. Art, its history, its value, and its interpretation, was suddenly accessible to everyone, and transformed a market that was traditionally the provenance of the wealthy into something that was much more egalitarian and understandable.

The impact of technology on the art world was brought into sharp focus last year, when, in March 2021, a piece titled Everydays: The First 5000 Days, a collage of 5,000 images by digital artist Mike Winkelmann (also known as Beeple), sold for $69.3 million. The sheer magnitude of the sale was historic, as it made Beeple one of the top three most valuable living artists in the world, according to auction house Christie’s.

However, the real news was that this piece of art was an NFT, or non-fungible token, and not a piece that could be easily hung on a gallery wall. NFTs are unique files that live on the blockchain, which is a digitally distributed, decentralized, public ledger that exists across a network of computers. According to Investopedia, “blockchains are

best known for their crucial role in cryptocurrency systems, such as Bitcoin or Ether (ETH)” and for maintaining a secure and decentralized record of transactions. “The innovation with a blockchain is that it guarantees the fidelity and security of a record of data and generates trust without the need for a trusted third party.”

David La Cross, formerly of Christie’s and now the CEO and co-founder of Arthur, an app for art collectors, explains that “NFT art, such as Beeple’s Everydays, is just a medium that an artist can potentially use, similar to photography and clay.”

La Cross, who has immersed himself in the new technology in order to help guide his users to understanding the terminology and mystique surrounding NFTs, said that “NFT is a file that points to something else, which is commonly a JPG (or compressed digital image).”

What makes this kind of art valuable is that it is nonfungible, or unique, and can’t be replaced. It is one of a kind. But, as La Cross points out, there are many other additional factors to consider. “Why are NFT art pieces so valuable? First, because someone decided they are! There is rampant speculation in the cryptocurrency market in general, and that filters down to NFTs. There are a lot of people who have made money in crypto and they see NFT art as a way to diversify what they are holding. It makes sense that the person who bought the Beeple was a big crypto investor. There is an aspect of promoting the use of cryptocurrency through NFT purchases such as this.”

Johanna Gosse, Assistant Professor of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Idaho, likens purchases of NFT art to “buying a deed. You are, essentially buying property rights to something and paying millions to say that you own something.” Gosse, however, takes a rather cynical

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Opposite: The artist brushstrokes of Young Woman with a Red Necklace, ca.1645, in the Dutch style of Rembrandt, can be seen in the original oil on wood painting. • That classic work is modernized on the image here by Artotop into an NFT. This technique is explained as emotions through freedom of artworks in a contemporary way—a timeless message pursuing a wildly creative new direction.

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view of NFTs, saying that “NFTs began as new media art in the spirit of photography, experimental film, and early internet art. The ethos of all of these was ‘free art’ that was designed to be interactive and participatory. I see NFTs as bringing hyper-privatization to something that began as creative commons—NFTs are the gated community of new media art. And I question what it means to buy art and to never let anyone have access to it.”

La Cross agrees, calling NFT art a “digital country club.” He does, however, see some benefits to NFTs, in particular, the fact that they solve the problem of provenance. The blockchain gives people “the ability to attach an NFT to a piece of artwork when it is created,” he explains. “There is a clear chain of transactions going back to the original minting of the piece and there is no question about the authenticity of that token. Using the blockchain with NFTs is a way to track transactions and provenance and also append other metadata to the work, such as information about exhibitions.”

La Cross also thinks that the other issue that NFTs solve is the question about resale of artwork. “In art, the money is made from trading—you sell a work for 3 ETH and then resell it for 100 ETH. In the current, conventional art world, if someone resells a piece of art, the artist is not remunerated. In the NFT world, that remuneration happens automatically. You can design payouts for smart contracts in any way you want so that the artist can always benefit from sales and resales of their work.”

So

, what do NFTs mean for art collectors? Should those who love art run out and begin investing?

Gosse has some advice for people who are curious.“Try to get an understanding of this if you want to do it as an investment. Know what the blockchain is, and understand what cryptocurrency is. And, if you love the work and care about the work, then, by all means, buy it. I truly believe that you should buy and support the art that you enjoy. At the end of the day, buy what makes you happy, and support art that resonates with you. That’s what all good collections are based on. Whether it’s valuable or profitable in the long run, that’s anybody’s guess.”

La Cross wholeheartedly agrees.“In general, you should be buying things with money that you can afford to lose.

I never suggest that you buy art because you think it is going to appreciate in value in the short term. Buy what you love and buy what makes you happy.”

La Cross recalls the story of Herb and Dorothy Vogel, a postal worker and a librarian, respectively, who, on their workingclass salaries, built one of the most important post-1960’s art collections of minimalist and conceptual art. “Art collecting is not something that only the super-rich can do,” he says. “Not every piece is a Beeple.” He is hoping that the Arthur app will help average collectors have a fun, daily interaction with art that will help them understand what they are looking at and eventually help them become more informed collectors. “In the end, art is attainable, whether it is an NFT, or a more traditional piece. You just have to understand what you are buying.” ■

A detail from Everydays: The First 500 Days, signed with NFT non-fungible token. The work is a collage of 5,000 individual images made one per day over more than thirteen years and was created by Mike Winkelmann, known professionally as Beeple. Its associated non-fungible token (NFT) was sold for $69.3 million at Christie’s in 2021, making it first on the list of most expensive non-fungible tokens. MUNDISSIMA / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM • Opposite: The Mona Lisa as converted into crypto art and NFT—art piece and artwork as digital pixelated canvas. M-SUR / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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philanthropy

Girls who code: The numbers game

BY SONIA HENRY

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PHOTOGRAPH BY BRIAN A JACKSON / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

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esearch has shown that children as young as age six believe that girls are less interested than boys in computer science and engineering. These kinds of stereotypes can last through their late teens and contribute to the gender gap in STEM college majors and careers. In some STEM fields, women have made small steps. For instance, according to Fortune, women account for 39% of chemists and 53% of biologists. But in an American Association of University Women review of “more than 380 studies from academic journals, corporations, and government sources,” there is a huge employment gap in computing and engineering. “In some fields, this gap is actually widening— not shrinking.” Two statistics that back up this claim are the fact that in 1995, 37% of computer scientists were women, while today, that number is just 24%. And women account for just 18% of computer science bachelor’s degrees in the United States. Despite the high job demand, computer science remains a male-dominated field.

In two recent studies, researchers surveyed more than 2,200 children and teens to gauge beliefs about computer science and engineering. These studies used familiar terms and phrases, such as “computer coding” for computer science or “designing and creating large structures such as roads and bridges” for engineering. They found that just over half (51%) of children believed girls are less interested than boys in computer science, and nearly two-thirds (63%) believed that girls were less interested in engineering. In comparison, 14% said girls are more interested than boys in computer science, while 9% said girls are more interested in engineering.

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Girls Who Code is a nonprofit organization which aims to support and increase the number of women in computer science by equipping young women with the necessary computing skills to pursue 21st century opportunities.

COURTESY GIRLS WHO CODE / GIRLSWHOCODE.COM

Opposite: Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code, accepts the Diversity Advocate Award onstage at the 34th Annual Walter Kaitz Foundation Fundraising Dinner in New York City.

PHOTOGRAPH BY LARRY BUSACCA/GETTY IMAGES FOR THE WALTER KAITZ FOUNDATION

Ten years ago, Reshma Saujani, a dynamic Harvard-educated lawyer, politician, and activist, decided to take action to reverse these numbers. She brought together twenty girls from New York City high schools for a seven-week experience designed to help them learn the basics of computer programming. This experiment was the foundation of Girls Who Code, a New York-based non-profit that works to nurture and cultivate a pipeline of female talent with STEM backgrounds. By creating Girls Who Code, Saujani wanted to socialize young girls to take risks and learn to program—two skills she believes girls need to move society forward.

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rom that modest beginning, Girls Who Code has grown into a program that has taught computer science skills, ranging from basic coding to designing algorithms and websites, to about half a million girls around the world. The goal of the organization is to close the gender gap in entrylevel tech jobs by 2030. According to the Girls Who Code website, more than a third of Girls Who Code participants have gone on to earn computer-science related degrees (more than seven times the U.S. average). One way the organization supports these young tech practitioners is by acknowledging the barriers of racial bias and discrimination that have played a role in widening the gender gap in STEM and that have created barriers for young women who are historically underrepresented in STEM field.

Girls Who Code embraces the values of bravery, sisterhood, and activism, saying that “being brave is about being resilient, persistent and ambitious; diverse ability, culture, identity, and opinion makes our organization stronger; and we’re not just preparing our girls to enter the workforce—we’re preparing them to lead it, to improve it, to completely and totally transform it.”

Girls Who Code’s programs include supporting school clubs for those in grades 3-12 in order for girls to explore coding in a fun and friendly environment; offering a wide range of programs aimed at supporting college-aged students and early career professionals (ages 18-25) in persisting in their computer science education and succeeding in their first internships and jobs; hosting a virtual summer immersion program for high school students to learn coding and make an impact in their community while preparing for a career in tech; and creating a new workforce development program aimed at matching young alumnae

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Reshma Saujani believes that diverse ability, culture, identity, and opinion makes the Girls Who Code organization stronger. Half of the girls it serves come from historically underrepresented groups, including girls who are Black, Latinx, or from low-income backgrounds.

with potential jobs and female tech mentors. Most of these programs are free, or provide stipends, thanks to support from some of the world’s biggest tech companies, including Apple, Dell Technologies, IBM, Microsoft and Walmart, Disney, Pixar, Twitter, and Facebook.

Still, Saujani does not believe that the needle is moving fast enough. “The number of women in tech is not that different than it was 10 years ago,” she said. Saujani, who has now transitioned to a role on the board of Girls Who Code, and its new CEO, education activist Dr. Tarika Barrett, recognize that there is much that still needs to be done before there is gender equity in the world of computer science. In particular, Barrett believes that the high-tech field needs more female role models. Instead of Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs, girls need to see more people in these highprofile roles who look like them, she says. Additionally, the field is still relatively uninviting to women.

“Half of women leave tech roles by the age of 35” because many of them feel that the workplace environment is “inhospitable to women,” says Barrett.

In

her groundbreaking TED talk, titled “Teach Girls Bravery, not Perfection,” Saujani says that “to truly innovate, we cannot leave behind half of our population.” She believes that girls are taught to avoid risk and failure and instead, are “taught to smile pretty, play it safe, get all As. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to play rough, swing high, crawl to the top of the monkey bars and then just jump off headfirst. By the time they’re adults, whether they’re negotiating a raise or even asking someone out on a date, they’re habituated to take risk after risk and are rewarded for it. It’s often said in Silicon Valley, no one even takes you seriously unless you’ve had two failed start-ups. In other words, we’re raising our girls to be perfect, and we’re raising our boys to be brave.”

Saujani believes that Girls Who Code not only teaches young women a tangible skill (coding), it also teaches them this bravery. “Coding is an endless process of trial and error, of trying to get the right

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PHOTOGRAPH BY ROMAN SAMBORSKYI / SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

COURTESY GIRLS WHO CODE / GIRLSWHOCODE.COM

command in the right place, with sometimes just a semicolon making the difference between success and failure,” she says. “Code breaks and then it falls apart, and it often takes many, many tries until that magical moment when what you’re trying to build comes to life. It requires perseverance. It requires imperfection.”

She believes that young women need to be comfortable with this imperfection. “We have to teach them to be brave in schools and early in their careers, when it has the most potential to impact their lives and the lives of others, and we have to show them that they will be loved and accepted not for being perfect, but for being courageous . . . When we teach girls to be imperfect, and we help them leverage it, we will build a movement of young women who are brave and who will build a better world for themselves and for each and every one of us.”

This bravery will help young women realize that they belong in the tech industry, says Barrett. “Since 2012, Girls Who Code has proven that girls and young women belong in STEM,” she says. “And when they are empowered to pursue computer science, they can also be a vital force in transforming our economy and society.” ■ Editor’s Note: For more information, visit girlswhocode.com.

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back story

T

he weather was brisk, but the air was warm with laughter and merriment as friends of Elysian gathered at Mountain Sky Guest Ranch in Emigrant, Montana, for a weekend of outdoor activities and touring—and the cover reveal of Elysian’s Summer 2022 Issue, featuring South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem. Located an hour outside of Bozeman, Mountain Sky has provided guests with a true dude ranch “experience” that’s complimented with fine dining, “rustic luxury” accommodations, and a wide range of activities since 1929. ■

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Top row, left to right: Kimberli Scott; Veronica Davis and Linda Mallis; Mountain Sky Guest Ranch; Jennifer King and Charlotte Jones; Rhonda and Brian Leonard.

Second row, left to right: Laura Turner Seydel and Elysian publisher Karen Floyd; Shelly Bermont Fine Jewelry on display; Karen Floyd and Laura Turner Seydel. Third row, left to right: Rob Springer and Paula Fender; Trish Carroll; Vikki Scott, Kimberli Scott, and Karen Floyd; Tammy Kovar; Alva and Janice Pack. Bottom row, left to right: Bea Sibblies; view of Mountain Sky Ranch; Kimberli Scott, Rhonda Leonard, Sonja Milisic, Bentley Mitchell, Karen Floyd, and Celeste Vaughan.

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